De la cybernétique à l’architecture numérique : retour sur un demi-siècle de théories, pratiques et projets expérimentaux

Little is said about the influence of cybernetics on the architectural practices and theories of the past fifty years. Yet, from the discourses of the experimental architecture of the 1960s and 1970s, to those of the most advanced advocates of digital design, the terms and key themes of cybernetics keep coming back. Focusing on the first attempts to apply cybernetics to architecture, then to the themes of the network, cyborg and cyberspace, and finally to the biological turn of the architecture of the 2000s, this article shows the prevalence of notions of the interactivity, adaptability, reflexivity, sensitivity and intelligence of architecture and the city in architects' discourses. Architects have never stopped working on these cybernetics notions. Moreover, the latter are culminating today in the theme of the smart city.