Speaking Machine and Human in the Second Machine Age

When I was first starting to formally study design in the late 80s, I came across a book at the MIT Press bookstore with the weighty title, “Theory and Design in the First Machine Age,” written by the architectural critic Reyner Banham.

It had a handwritten yellow discount sticker atop an austerely designed black cover with big white type and orange-red horizontal lines. Its original publication date of 1960 partially explained why the book cover looked out of fashion and yet it still stood out in a way that spoke to me. The price definitely worked for me too.

My first read didn’t get me anywhere because the book was written in design-ese. At the time I spoke fluent engineer-ese, which made it easier for me to read equations, principles, and anything involving computation. But the book stayed with me throughout the years, and eventually by the fourth read I found myself chuckling at Banham’s droll yet witty prose. I guess that was proof that by then I’d become fluent in design-ese too. And yet the title’s reference to “the first machine age” signaled to me that the ability to speak engineer-ese was still highly relevant.

Machines don’t need to…