The Computer Centre of the University of Madrid. A space of collective experimentation and creative freedom

Abstract

With the arrival of the first computer at the University of Madrid, the Computer Centre, one of the most significant spaces of creative freedom in pre-democratic Spain, began its activity. The incorporation of the machine into the different creative fields was woven around a series of seminar structures. They favored a formula for creativity based on collective experience, at the crossroads of disciplines. The Seminar on Composition of Architectural Spaces, coordinated by Javier Seguí de la Riva, initiates a reflection on the logical bases and operational foundations of design in architecture for its possible automation. A second line of research is the so-called architecture of regulation, in which the computer is integrated into the architecture itself. Juan Navarro Baldeweg and José Miguel de Prada Poole explore complementary aspects of the architecture of regulation. The theories enunciated by Navarro Baldeweg in Residential Automat, are experimented by Prada Poole in his prototypes of Structures of variable morphology. This study builds bridges between the fields of experimentation in architecture opened up by the pioneers of computation in architecture and the new models of contemporary digital design and production.