If architecture is a kind of hardware, it may seem surprising that in recent months these pages have been filled, at least in part, with reviews of software. In particular, those programs and institutions that offer graphic interface-based models of space (e.g., Google Earth, ARTstor, etc.) have rightfully received attention as current or potential tools of the art and architectural historian. These reviews have offered insights into the ways in which our discipline is changing——augmented and perhaps impoverished——by the inevitable onrush of these technologies. However, a crucial aspect of all of these programs or tools, which has been consistently elided (and architectural historians are by no means alone in perpetrating this elision), is their primary status as advertising. If this claim strikes the reader as strange, a quick visual analysis of any Google site, ARTstor metadata page, or Twitter feed should...
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September 2010
