Towards a (new) Architectural History for a digital age. Archdaily as a dissemination tool for architectural knowledge

In our modern society people is more than ever a passive subject faced to a vast flow of information. Inspiration and problem solving can take the form of direct citation from the mass of examples disseminated by digital social media, websites and other sources. Focusing on the architectural field, the increasing development of Social Networks and of mono-thematic channels like archdaily, worldarchitecture, divisare, just to cite a few, offer every day a large amount of realised and unrealised projects which easily can serve as inspiration for the development of new designs. Among many other values ubiquity, immediateness and easiness are the most interesting effects which are of interest for this paper. It could be argued that critical practice is substituting a more traditional theoretical body of thought related with the practice of architecture. Analysing the culture of instantaneity impulsed by digital social networks, we focus on the effects of immediacy, reliability, trend and democratisation for the dissemination of architecture. As any new project developed is based on a previous work or methodology, based on quotation or interpretation of earlier works, we could consider 'new knowledge' a combination of previous information and/or methodologies. One of the results shows how synchronicity between inspired and inspiring works leading to homogeneous bodies of work in very different latitudes make difficult to record a proper history of contemporary architecture in the digital era. The attempt to create a historiography of the digital age contemporary architecture should start to consider new methodologies, tools and strategies to apply. Apart from considering the effects of these technologies on architectural education and practice, suggestions are made to create a tool to show the evolving propagation of information, which should be used by contemporary historiography of architecture in order to adapt to the new digital environment permeating our society