Tectile Tectonics by Lars Spuybroek
"We come across the same erroneous idea time and time again, be it in Mumford, Schemacher, Ellul, or Illich: the belief that we can humanize machines by slowing them down, refraining from their continuous use, alternating their use with authentic home- and handcrafting, or using them on a less massive scale." (26)
While I thoroughly enjoy the premise of the topic, Spuybroek is making fairly radical claims connecting gothic architecture to the realms both of the digital and the natural without a thorough or convincing argument in support. Here, the gothic is seen as a mediating typology that straddles the line between human flourish and mechanic production. I agree that it is, but isn't any other architectural typology as well? Further, what makes the gothic more of a balance between these two poles than neo-classical, modern, or postmodern architecture? Surely the great synthesis of custom production at mass scales and machine-oriented assembly of today is an amplified example of the gothic, albeit at times with less impressive formal results.
Spuybroek's primary argument for the digital tie lies in his imagined example of the digital coding of the cathedral. While using Ruskin's six criteria as reference, he attempts to mentally draw the procedure of the formation of the edifice, as one might in CATIA. At a surficial level this is perhaps evocative, but the imagery used to relate sections such as "savageness", "naturalism", and "changefulness" all belongs to a fantastical cartoonish portrayal of the actual intricacies required both to model and to manufacture such a cathedral. If Spuybroek was truly interested in digital nature, his language would be much more specific and much more singular to gothic architecture.