A century after the Bauhaus paradigm, which sought to embrace new technologies to rethink architectural aesthetics in a universalistic fantasy of standardization, the digital era is now disrupting the codification of architectural imagery, giving rise to a new desire: aligning digital imagination with the reality of life.

It is a new fantasy, now advocating non-standard, customizable approaches while utilizing technological advancements to create a new way of thinking the city. The META company [Facebook/Instagram/WhatsApp...], pioneer in machine learning, has collected data from millions of users to refine an algorithmic predictive tool capable of generating and proposing content most likely to interest each user, encouraging them to consume an unending stream of images through a smartphone interface.

Having excelled as a social network, META dedicates a subsidiary to urban planning, now striving to be at the forefront of non-standard architecture by reusing the predictive process of a cutting-edge algorithm capable of generating a new type of content based on its users' preferences. Unlike parametric design explored by architects for a long time, the algorithm focuses on making its productions picture-perfect. For Instagram, only computational tools can offer the perfect synthesis of beauty, as they can dictate and predict digital aesthetics' trends.

Universal, Instagram fulfills the fantasy upheld by the modern movement: to globalize an architectural aesthetic as a radical system, approaching ever closer to perfection. It fascinates and spreads worldwide, disregarding entirely the place and culture in which it implants itself. Through an iconoclastic rapport of superficiality, it seeks to instill desire, evoke an event. It is a race for attention: the city becomes a continuous scrolling of various architectures, aiming to engage, capture the gaze, and elicit a reaction. Furthermore, architecture becomes an escape, a need to break free from a too mundane society.

Architecture is impulsive. It is ordered with a few clicks on a web interface, and an algorithm generates an instant response. The experience remains physical; we visualize our space through virtual reality goggles. Satisfied, we only have to click and wait for it to be delivered in a kit, fitting into the maximum capacity of a container. We simply follow well-established mechanisms of globalization.

Architecture is demonstrative. Always more technophilic, the mode of fabrication conditions the architectural language and how these spaces are exported. Large-scale 3D printing becomes the technical solution to the challenge of producing customized objects in a standardized way.

Architecture emancipates itself from the all-powerful architect. Already assisted, the design process becomes more autonomous and transcends the architect's role. He/she is no longer the project's designer but rather the creator of the system that generates it. He/she becomes programmer, perfecting the system, defining rules and constraints. He/she becomes reviewer, finalizing the project's outcome. No longer attributed to a specific architect or agency, architecture becomes mainstream and open-source.

The language evolves. The term "content," which previously referred to a flow of virtual images, now designates a flow of diverse spaces. The "interface," which used to refer to the virtual space facilitating dialogue between a user and a computer program, now becomes the physical space in which one presents oneself and is seen, observed in a relaxed manner. These are places to look at before being places to live in. Perhaps sometimes they do not even have a specific purpose other than to entertain and contemplate. The architectural program dissipates and takes a back seat; it is no longer anticipated. A unique dichotomy between interior and exterior is maintained, where the facade of the setting takes precedence over its potential uses. Everywhere, form dissociates from function.

The city evolves. It becomes thematized and submerged in small simulacra of artificiality. Now conceived through modulated and duplicated interfaces, the city transcends the processes and temporalities that previously shaped it. It is now made through more or less subtle collages of heterogeneous architectures.

For urban planners, this is an opportunity to turn their city into a showcase, not only in terms of aesthetics but also technically and even as a tourist attraction; it is a demonstration of progress. Various public and private actors are rapidly constructing the city. The algorithm allows for a wide range of urban typologies and morphologies to be produced, ranging from urban furniture to entire subdivisions, and even monumental installations. Architecture fragments and embellishes public spaces. First, developers or real estate actors commission and then resell or rent these spaces, leaving their use open to appropriation. Second, the architecture's image is sold and spreads because it attracts and fascinates numerous individuals and influencers.

L’architecture se fragmente et embellit les espaces publics. Dans un premier temps, des promoteurs ou acteurs de l’immobilier commandent puis revendent ou louent ces espaces, dont ils laissent l’usage libre à l’appropriation. Dans un second temps, c’est l’image de l’architecture qui se vend et se repend car elle attire et fascine de nombreux individus et influenceurs.

Instagram benefits doubly from this: by providing its design tool and the manufacturing process, it sells spaces whose images are meant to proliferate at the heart of its social network.