This collection of more than thirty texts, which were originally published between 1790 and the present day, explores man’s rich relationship with material things. Devised largely in response to the gradual breakdown of the divide between art and design that began over a century ago, this book sheds light on the ways that the concept of the thing as idea has been considered over time.

There are eight million stories of the origins of the digital in architecture, and this book brings together fourteen of them. The arguments address specific changes in ways of thinking about architecture, building, and cities, as well as the shifts in technology that resulted from these changes, marking both a capstone of Archaeology of the Digital and the start of an investigation into other beginnings of the digital in architecture.

“German entrepreneurs are planning to outstrip the ancient Egyptians by building the world’s largest pyramid on a derelict site in eastern Germany – which they claim will eventually contain the remains of millions of people in concrete burial blocks.”
—The Independent

“If art takes place in a contemporary art museum (where we expect it), what does it mean? Art should not be about filling spaces, but about necessities and urgencies.” Such are the principles conveyed by the visionary Hans Ulrich Obrist, seeking out ways to reinvent and invent museums of the 21st century.

Archaeology of the Digital delves into the genesis and establishment of digital tools for design conceptualization, visualization, and production at the end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s. Conceived as an object-based investigation of four pivotal projects that established distinct directions in architecture’s use of digital tools, the book highlights the dialogue between computer sciences, architecture and engineering that was at the core of these experiments.