During the three decades following the Second World War, and before the advent of the personal computer, government investment in university research in North America and the UK funded multidisciplinary projects to investigate the use of computers for manufacturing and design. Documenting the eponymous curatorial project, Designing the Computational Image, Imagining Computational Design explores this period of remarkable inventiveness and traces its repercussions on architecture and other creative fields through the work of computational architects, designers, and artists working today.

Alongside a compelling visual archive showcasing hundreds of unpublished or lesser-known computational images, drawings, films, and software, the book features essays by architecture, media, and science and technology scholars offering close readings of specific images, as well as conversations and interviews with historical protagonists and contemporary practitioners. Together, these materials illuminate in unprecedented detail the confluence of technical innovations in software, geometry, and hardware with a fledging technological imaginary of design and creativity, tracing the emergence — and reimagining the potentials — of a vibrant field of interdisciplinary research and practice.