Architecture Transformed: The Digital Image in Architecture 1980–2020 traces four decades of change in architectural representation through 51 visualisations — from hand drawings and photomontages to computer renderings — mapping how digital methods reshaped design thinking and practice.
About This Book
At the centre of this book is a deceptively simple question: what happens to architecture when the image used to conceive and communicate it changes fundamentally? Working across the analogue-to-digital transition, the authors analyse how shifts in architectural visualisation — from the hand-drawn to the rendered — altered not just how buildings looked on paper, but how they were imagined, developed, and understood. Drawing on the archives of the Deutsches Dokumentationszentrum für Kunstgeschichte (DDK) – Bildarchiv Foto Marburg, the book situates digital representation within a longer history of architectural media, making it essential reading for anyone engaged with design process, architectural theory, or the evolving role of the digital image.
Key Features
- 160 pages examining architectural representation through 51 design visualisations spanning hand drawings, photomontage, and computer renderings
- Authors: Hubert Locher, Dominik Lengyel, Florian Henrich, and Catherine Toulouse
- Research conducted in collaboration between the DDK – Bildarchiv Foto Marburg and the Chair of Architecture and Visualization at Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus-Senftenberg
- Published by Birkhauser Verlag, ISBN 9783035624489
What You'll Discover
- How the transition from analogue to digital image-making altered the conceptual and practical foundations of architectural design
- A comparative analysis of 51 visualisations across four decades, revealing how representational conventions evolved and what each shift meant for the discipline
- The relationship between digitising knowledge — in both theory and practice — and changing standards of architectural communication
- How photomontage served as a transitional mode between hand drawing and computational rendering, bridging two distinct eras of architectural media
About the Author
Hubert Locher is joined by co-authors Dominik Lengyel, Florian Henrich, and Catherine Toulouse, whose collaboration spans art history, architectural theory, and visualisation research. The book emerges from work conducted within the German Research Foundation program entitled "The Digital Image," anchoring its arguments in sustained, peer-reviewed scholarly inquiry.
Specifications
- Format: Hardcover
- Pages: 160
- Dimensions: 25.7 x 20.5 cm
- Language: English
- ISBN: 9783035624489
- Publisher: Birkhauser Verlag
- Publication Date: [Details available upon request]
Perfect For: Architects and designers interested in representation and process, architectural historians, academics researching digital media and design methodology, and students of architectural theory.