The Metapolis Dictionary of Advanced Architecture: City, Technology and Society in the Information Age

"It’s a thumping tome with a sexy, tactile, red vinyl cover. When I first came across it, I was flabbergasted by its exciting content. At a time when I was straining my brain to understand vastly diverse angles about the future of urbanism, this dictionary came to my aid. As a writer I found it especially valuable to clarify the origins and meanings of many words that were emerging in progressive discussions and publications, but which were novel to me. Here are some sample words from the dictionary that I wanted to understand: anarchitecture; impermanences; a-couplings; ad-herence and ecomonumentality. Although the authors are Catalan architects, the English translation was exemplary. Although these words are not viable in writing for a broad audience, it was exciting to read the concepts, and for a while this book was my bible. “Really cities are as much about flows – of information and behaviours, and about intangible ‘stuff’, not only tangible ‘things’.” The authors of Metapolis were the founders of one of the world’s most innovative architecture schools, The Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia. They lead the continuation of Barcelona as one of the world’s most fertile cities for progressive applications of urban theory. They aligned with a publisher in Barcelona called Ramon Prat who runs a company called ACTAR. Jointly, they produced an extraordinary series of ‘boogazines’, that were rich in theoretical articles, student design concepts and urban research case studies. Zaha Hadid was in partnership with Patrik Schumacher , perhaps the world’s most prominent exponent of parametric architecture. This was a term that he promoted as a context for computer-literate architects to debate how you would structure a building information model. The parametricists, including a group called smartGeometry, spearheaded the BIM revolution in architecture. However, I felt that they were caught in thinking about the model of the building and were not really considering how their real buildings would function as nodes in networked cities. To me, parametric architecture seemed (then) to be mainly about designing stocks of fluid-looking yet static structures. Really cities are as much about flows – of information and behaviours, and about intangible ‘stuff’, not only tangible ‘things’."