Palladio, the Computer Program Source Code and Architectural Principles

Abstract

In 1992 MIT Press published "Possible Palladian Villas (Plus a Few Instructively Impossible Ones)", the result of the chance collaboration between Richard Freedman, an undergraduate majoring in computer science, and George Hersey, Professor of Art History at Yale. The book described their findings while writing the software called /Palladio/, which was included in a floppy disc accompanying the book. This paper looks also at the role of the third partner in this collaboration, the computer, and how, in its capacity to impersonate Palladio, it reproduced but also challenged many of the myths and even some of the anxieties of twentieth century architecture.