Flowcharting: From Abstractionism to Algorithmics in Art and Architecture

By the time the computer entered the architectural scene, its place had been prepared by decades of avant-gardist experimentation. The modernist programme of rationalising creative practice took a decidedly bureaucratic turn between the 1930s and 1960s. While attempting to crack the code of artistic genius in hopes of democratising the creation of better environments, a repertoire of algorithmic techniques emerged. Matthew Allen shows how, by reformulating their disciplines in terms of flowcharting procedures developed for scientific management, artists and architects enacted a paradigm shift, replacing composition with organisation as the basis for design.