PLATFORM ARCHITECTURE An Anonymous History of Warehouses in Tilbury between 17162015
Platforms are what platforms do. The Stack, Benjamin H. Bratton1
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FILIPPO FOSCHI
Platform Architecture is a historical inquiry into the evolution of platforms, conducted through a close analysis of warehousing in Tilbury, England, from the 1700s to present day. Due to its widespread use today, the word ‘platform’ may generate forms of misinterpretation. Its etymology, however, helps to capture the essence of Platform Architecture and demystify the ambiguity of such terminology. Derived from the old French plateforme, platte fourme, the term literally means ‘flat form’, and since the mid-sixteenth century has been used in English to designate a ‘raised, level surface’.2 In its lexical development, the term has assumed three different connotations including abstract, physical and political meanings – ‘platform as a plan of action, as a stage for a plot, and as proposed rules of governance.’3 These linguistic nuances provide insight into the theoretical framework through which an architectural history of anonymous buildings can be produced. While they bear no individual right to historical significance, such buildings have now become the hegemonic typology of ‘the architecture of the internet’.4 Indeed, this research aims to show that the contemporary architectonic production of digital platforms - such as the newly built Amazon Fulfilment Centre at Tilbury – are based on historical precedents, that can be traced back to the eighteenth-century. Since its foundation, Tilbury has been a laboratory of technological infrastructure, its claim to such status instigated by the establishment of Tilbury Port in 1886 - the only London Dock that is still operative today. For the purposes of this study, four major historic phases in the development of platform architecture at Tilbury