The thesis deals with the relationship between Architecture and the Technical Object during the Machine Age. It has taken The mode of existence of technical objects (1958) by Gilbert Simondon, as a work from which to build its philosophical framework. The phenomenological thought mobilizes here a particular vision of Architecture and serves as a model of ontological analysis from which to study the process of genesis and existence of the architectural technical object, structured in the cycles of imagination, invention and individuation. Among the objectives, is to build a criterion for recognizing when a work of architecture is a technical object, for which a number of conditions should be given: they refer to an imaginary formed by object-images from other technical objects; they result from implementing technology transfer during the design process, by assembling materials, components or procedures used by industry to produce other technical objects; they are individualized by concretization, tending their parts to integrate and converge into a single structure. The industrialization process experienced by Architecture from the Second Industrial Revolution to the first energy crisis in 1973 is the time framework of the investigation. During that time, architects have used industry as a source for different types of technology transfer (eidetic, tectonic and organic) using images, materials and procedures as their means. Researching them has shown the importance of technology transfer as a project methodology that has helped evolving the architectural object and has advanced Architecture as a discipline. As for the historiographical framework, the works of Reyner Banham and Martin Pawley have been used mainly as information sources for the Architecture in the Age of the Machine, besides serving as indexes from which to reconstruct an Atlas of the Imaginary of the technical object. This allows to relate the various technical objects with each other, revealing the true importance and significance of those, for the Architectures with which they relate. They are set now within the more extensive and complex context of industry and the history of technology –of which it was always part of- revealing all the information they carry in their own 'genetic' code, and deploying complete chapters of technological culture. The history of modern Architecture is also the history of modern Industry and its industrial facilities, products and devices, procedures and production processes. The transportation industry has been chosen because it has been historically a source of inspiration for architects and source of technology transfer for Architecture. Technical sets such as shipyards, automobile factories or aircraft hangars, technical individuals as boats, cars or planes, and technical elements such as the structures that shape and support them, are all technical objects which share properties with the architectures presented here. The emergence of modern vehicles of the early twentieth century is directly related to the Architecture of the Machine Age. These have acted as the means to convey those concepts, eager to transform some of the traditional properties of Architecture, regarding its making, its habitability, its duration, its functionality or its aesthetics. The fascination of modern architects -technologists- for those new habitable structures has been maintained for over a century, ranging from the domain of their symbolic value as object-images, to a more inquisitive look, pursuing a deeper understanding of their own organization and the technical system to which they belong.
This thesis offers an alternative look at the Architecture of the Machine Age. Crossing a well-known and academically accepted historiography with Simondon’s the Mechanology and "technical vitalism", a fresh, renewed and optimistic techno-aesthetic interpretation is achieved, to look at some of the most important works Architecture of the twentieth century, which surely will contribute to the development of this current one, already immersed in the paradigm shift towards sustainability and ecology.