Through matching five leading figures from the architectural school with the spatial characteristics of Rotterdam, whilst connecting them to five databases—art, war, theology, law, and language—I have constructed five ‘algorithmic avatars’:
1. The Situationist — Constant Nieuwenhuys
Representative theories: New Babylon, The Player.
Algorithmic preferences: floating networks, scaffolding, fluid spaces that break down boundaries.
CLIP prompts: ‘Floating networks, labyrinthine scaffolding, playful continuous structures, anti-capitalist spaces’
2. The Provocateur — Rem Koolhaas (OMA)
Representative theories: Culture of Crowding, Bigness, Programmatic Friction.
Algorithmic preferences: Massive modern commercial spectacles, glass megastructures, vertical stacking.
CLIP prompt: ‘Massive metropolitan scale, programmatic friction, glass skyscrapers, radical modernist spectacle’
3. The Data-Stacker —— Winy Maas (MVRDV)
Representative theories: Data landscape, giant bonsai, pixelated assembly.
Algorithmic preferences: Exaggerated symbolic containers, high saturation, voxelised collages.
CLIP prompt: ‘Voxelised pixel architecture, extreme colourful data landscape, hyper-pragmatic pop-art containers’
4. The Structuralist — Piet Blom
Representative theories: The city as a forest, cellular proliferation.
Algorithmic preferences: Non-orthogonal geometry, compact residential pods, polygonal repetition.
CLIP prompt: ‘Cellular proliferation, non-orthogonal geometric clusters, dense mutated residential forms’
5. The Rational Machine — J.A. Brinkman (Nieuwe Bouwen)
Representative theories: Nieuwe Bouwen, absolute rationality, machine aesthetics.
Algorithmic preferences: hardcore industrial ports, steel frameworks, factory buildings, cranes.
CLIP prompt: ‘Hardcore industrial machinery, rational steel grids, functionalist port infrastructure, pure mechanical aesthetic’
These 5 databases serve as the ‘rules of the game’ that govern Agent behaviour.
Art: Expressiveness, sculptural forms, vivid colours, expressive visual tension.
War: Defensive bunkers, post-apocalyptic ruins, heavy brutalist armour
Theology: Sublime verticality, monumental scale, divine light and shadow
Law: Strict grids, rigid boundaries, ordered institutional repetition
Language: Semiotic readability, urban typography, symbolic communication