Architecture Exchange Symposium #4, Jussi Parikka: How Do Machines See Architecture?

Symposium Talk, April 2025

This paper highlighted the shifting purposes to which mapping has been put over time in design research, from the academic studio to the art gallery to the professional office. Drawing from the work of contemporary as well as mid-twentieth century architects, I questioned whether this has been and will continue to be an effective strategy for pushing back against the systematized “invisual” modes of image-making and analysis discussed by Jussi Parikka in his book Operational Images. Comparing such maps to research-based art installations, I argued that they offer a means of dealing with information overload. I explored the form these maps take (namely superimposed layers), the knowledge they produce (a proprietary heuristic understanding), and the mode of viewership they require (an almost paranoiac expectation to decipher and draw connections). I concluded by offering some thoughts on how operational images could be better mobilized to support the admirable values that deep maps embody. If we are to retain architecture as a cultural practice rather than a technocratic mandate, architects need to do better than compensatory gestures such as the making of deep maps.

Slope mapping for multi-family housing master planning project by Beverly Willis and Associates at El Paso, Texas, 1974, prepared using their proprietary CARLA (Computerized Approach to Residential Land Analysis) software package for rapid assessment of site feasibility (Beverly Willis Archive, beverlywillis.com)