FINDING SPACE IN FILM.

Maria Sieira

How will digital media change architecture? Some books and buildings are already making the case for a more sinuous "blob architecture." While orthogonal drawingsóplans and sectionsógenerally used in construction make it difficult to build non-orthogonal shapes, digital technology makes it possible to generate three-dimensional blueprints that are linked directly to the manufacturing process. This makes it easy to build any shape, no matter how irregular (one famous example of this is Frank Gehry's Bilbao Guggenheim Museum). If the newfound freedom of the twentieth century building resided in the amazing strength and span of reinforced concrete and steel skeletons, a freedom that initially led to the formally expressive Art Nouveau, today's technological magic is in the delineation of geometrically complex forms, and itís leading to the equally formally expressive blob architecture.

But a new technology will affect, not just how buildings are made, but also the architectural requirements of the society using the technology, and so with trains came the need for train stations. Even more significantly, using transportation systems meant that to be adjacent was not necessarily to be at a closer distance, but to be able to get there quicker, making adjacency a function of time instead of distance. Communities developed around transportation nodes or highway exits, and eventually cities easily connected through airports developed a cultural kinship manifest in the glass skyscrapers each built. Now, with near instant internet access, it's the increasingly sophisticated communication systems available that threaten to change adjacency and make it independent of both distance and time. This new space, with its jumps across time and space, is akin to the space of film.