Facing symmetrical pressures that threaten to disrupt its structural foundations, contemporary society is being disrupted by the climate crisis and by the widespread anxiety over the centralised control of digital information. In my talk, I propose a critical inquiry into the buildings and their historical foundations, which allow information societies to emerge in tandem with environmental degradation. At the core of the co-evolution of information societies and an environmental consciousness, is the unprecedented crisis of control brought on by new forms of government and production in the mid-19th century. Since the early stages of industrialisation, empires, liberal democracies, and corporations sought to anticipate, mitigate, and ultimately control otherwise unpredictable risks. By collecting and disseminating large amounts of data, they pledged to manage modernity’s intrinsic volatility. In my talk, I will try to demonstrate that “Data Centers” are not the product of cloud computing or the so-called digital revolution, but were created in the 19th century to hedge the risks associated with the unpredictability of exploiting nature.

Alfredo Thiermann is an architect and Assistant Professor for History and Theory of Architecture at the école polytechnique fédérale in Lausanne. Through his practice and theoretical research, he explores the intersection between architecture and different media, from sound installations and film scenography to single-family houses, public buildings, and large-scale infrastructures. He has taught and lectured at Harvard University, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, and other institutions. Alfredo’s work has been published in Harvard Design Magazine, A U, Revista ARQ, TRACE magazine, Revue matières, Potlatch, Real Review, Thresholds, Archithese, gta papers, and Baunetz, and has been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Santiago, the Istanbul Design Biennial, gta exhibitions in Zurich, HKW in Berlin, and the Venice Art Biennale among other institutions. He has been the recipient of the Rome Prize of the German Academy in Rome.

Alfredo studied architecture, receiving his professional degree from the Pontificia Universidad Católica in Chile and a Masters degree from Princeton University. He received his doctoral degree from the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule (ETH) in Zurich. He has been a fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, at the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montreal, and at the Collegium Helveticum in Zurich. He is the author of book titled Radio-Activities: Architecture and Broadcasting in Cold War Berlin published by MIT Press in 2024. He lives, works, and takes care of Pedro Tristán and Juan Nataniel in Lausanne.