Studio Shaffer Lutsko

Published in CARTHA: Invisible Structures, this essay explores how digital technologies have transformed architecture’s relationship to vision, from satellites and sensors to data harvested by everyday devices. Today’s monuments are no longer civic landmarks but infrastructures of power—data centers, undersea cables, and surveillance hubs—often hidden, windowless, or buried, yet monumental in scale and impact. These structures blur the boundaries between public and private, physical and virtual, while reshaping how space is seen and inhabited. The essay argues that architects must decide whether to reinforce this technological panopticon or create spaces of resistance, escape, and alternative visibility.