Regarding the Importance of the Pre- in the Post- on the Path Towards the Meta-system

Abstract

Historically, systemic considerations adapt their meanings in each era, incorporating progressively new conceptual, methodological and operational advances. Thus, the idea of a system during the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the Baroque Period and the Contemporary Era has risen and evolved, and linear thinking has first been made possible and then altered and subverted by alternative techniques, leading us towards the meta-system. This progress towards the meta-systemic derives from ongoing processes anchored in the distant past, finally leading us to a new paradigm. We aim to trace the evolutionary nature of the systemic character, to clarify its changing notions and its influence on the view of the world and the view of architecture, to gain a better perspective about the present and future: in order to achieve understanding of tools such as computers, we must see that, rather than being the origin of the new paradigm, they are neither the origin nor the product, when the cause-effect dipole is no longer operative. Therefore, our concept of “meta-” constitutes a hybrid condition that implies an appreciation of the “prior” + the “subsequent”, not only in the sense of “post”, but also in the sense of “with” and “alongside”, based on the intermediate perspective of our time. And all of this constitutes the starting-point of a future comprehensive research on the origins of the parametric architectural project, based on the hypothetical existence of an equally rich parametric pre-digital theory and history that has been barely explored. In this respect, we should not confuse meta-progress with just digital advance.