André Patrão gives a talk to Smithsonian Associates

How have architecture and philosophy interacted throughout the ages? Why did they do so? And what came about? André Patrão, postdoctoral researcher at the ACHT lab, tackles these and many other questions as part of this year’s Smithsonian Associates program. The talk takes place online on Friday, March 26^th, at 6:30 pm ET. Tickets are sold directly on the Smithsonian Associates page, costing $25 for non-members and $20 for members.

Program Description

What could architecture and philosophy have to do with one another? At first glance, not much it would seem. And yet an astonishing relation between them goes back as far as texts and treatises of ancient Greece and Rome. Ever since, it has shaped Romanic and Gothic cathedrals of the Middle Ages, affected the emergence of the architectural profession in the Renaissance, underlaid modernist ideas as well as critiques against it, and led to prolific experimental interactions between architects and philosophers throughout the second half of the 20th century.

As remarkably productive as profoundly problematic, this relation has now become academically and professionally institutionalized, confirming the continuing importance of an unlikely but influential bond between two fields apparently so far apart.