Digital Transformation

Some points for a critical approach from history, culture and architecture

Abstract

This is a paper that was presented online in 2020, as part of a series of conversations called “School Dialogues; Analog and Digital” of the School of Architecture of the University of Valparaíso. From the transcript of a videoconference in times of isolation due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it addresses the irruption of digital transformation as part of a process of industrial revolutions that is producing great cultural, social and political changes, which cannot be unrelated to the discipline of architecture.
In the first place, the paper sets a possible context from the history of recent technological changes, to approach the current moment of industrialization in general and specifically, in the architecture, engineering and construction industry.
Secondly, it raises some critical points about the effects of digitization on culture, society and the transfer from analogic creation to a digital one devoid of individuality. It also addresses the media state in which architecture is shown today and the changes that digital transformation produces in creative processes, compared to traditional and analogic ways of projecting.
Lastly, it reflects on the possibility of reconciling the analog and the digital, perceived in the academy as opposites, when considering the digital creation tools with an instrumental value of extension and at the service of the creative hand and not in said tools themselves.