The Cybernetic Relevance of Architecture

Abstract

In his article "The Architectural Relevance of Cybernetics", (1969), Gordon Pask supported the substantial affinity between the interdisciplinary field of cybernetics and architecture. According to Pask, this affinity is not limited to the diffusion of computer-aided design (which implies the application of a cybernetic method to architecture), but is rather justified on the basis of the new point of view on machines and organisms carried by cybernetics, with the tendency to equate them on the basis of their systemic nature. If on the one hand it is therefore possible to affirm with Pask that cybernetics is relevant to architecture, it is perhaps possible, on the other hand, to overturn this statement and support the hypothesis that architecture has been and is still relevant for the development of studies on cybernetics, having represented one of the most effective fields of application.