Politics and Digital Fabrication

Politics and Digital Fabrication
—An Ongoing Debate.
Vibok Works, 2016.
Finalist FAD Award / Thought & Criticism, 2017.
Shortlisted XIV Award / Research and Publications, 2018.
Authors: Francisco González de Canales and Nuria Álvarez Lombardero.
Prologue: José Pérez de Lama Halcón.
Edition: Paula V. Álvarez.
Graphic Design: Vibok Works

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The hacker movement poses a territory of technologies as a field of permanent conflict in which multiple alternatives are possible, all with their particular social and political implications. Francisco González de Canales and Nuria Álvarez Lombardero, with their usual erudition and insight, are situated in this line of critical thinking, bringing the debate to an understudied field such as that of the emergence of digital manufacturing in architecture.

The workshops discussed in this text are also located in two extremely relevant places, the Open City of Valparaíso and the CUJAE of Havana, generating a beautiful connection between the thinking and radical and revolutionary practices first initiated in the 1960s and 1970s and the authors who further developed on this thinking subsequently (from Italian post-operaism to Chantal Mouffe’s agonism, to Richard Sennet’s political dimensions of the making).

The policalisation of digital fabrication, signified by the entirety of the digital, urban and architectural technologies proposed by the authors, and its relocation in a territory of conflict, does not deny the artistic and technical, but on the contrary, highlights a fundamental contribution to the contemporary architectural debate and perhaps, its greatest urgency.

—José Pérez de Lama.

Francisco González de Canales studied Architecture at ETSA Seville, ETSA Barcelona and Harvard University, and worked for Foster + Partners and Rafael Moneo. He has taught at the Architectural Association (AA) and the University of Seville for a long time. Francisco was also co-director of Neutra magazine and cultural coordinator (AACP) at the AA. Among his recent publications are First Works (2009), Experiments with life itself (2012), Rafael Moneo: A Theoretical Reflection through the Professional Practice (2013) and Rafael Moneo: Building, Teaching, and Writing (2015).

Nuria Álvarez Lombardero studied Architecture and Urbanism at ETSA Madrid and the Architectural Association, and worked for Machado & Silvetti Associates in Boston. She has taught at different architectural schools including the Architectural Association, University of Cambridge, University College of London, TEC Monterrey and University of Seville. Nuria has published different articles in international magazines, being her book Arquitectas: Redefining the Practice (2015) awarded in the XIII Spanish Bienal of Urbanism and Architecture.

Both Nuria and Francisco, PhD holders, are directors of the Seville-London based practice Canales Lombardero since 2003 and the initiative Politics of Fabrication at the AA since 2009.