Open Lecture by EKA Honorary Doctor Antoine Picon

As part of EKA’s 110th birthday week, Honorary Doctor Antoine Picon presents an public lecture “Architecture and Materiality in the Age of the Digital and the Anthropocene”.
The lecture will take place on November 6 at 18:00 in the main hall of the Estonian Academy of Arts and is open to all interested parties.

Antoine Picon is the G. Ware Travelstead Professor of the History of Architecture and Technology at the GSD where he is also Chair of the PhD in Architecture, Landscape Architecture, and Urban Planning. He teaches courses in the history and theory of architecture and technology. Trained as an engineer, architect, and historian, Picon works on the relationships between architectural and urban space, technology, and society, from the eighteenth century to the present.
A series of Picon’s books offer a comprehensive overview of the changes brought by the computer and digital culture to the theory and practice of architecture as well as to the planning and experience of the city.

It is almost impossible to work on the history of technology without encountering the question of nature or rather of the relationship between the natural and the artificial. This question is at the core of Picon’s latest book, Natures Urbaines: Une Histoire Technique et Sociale (2024) follows two main threads: the technological component of the presence of nature in cities as well as its social and political dimension.

Picon has received a number of awards for his writings, including the Médaille de la Ville de Paris, and twice the Prix du Livre d’Architecture de la Ville de Briey, as well as the Georges Sarton Medal of the University of Gand. In 2010, he was elected a member of the French Académie des Technologies. In 2015, he became a member of the French Académie d’Architecture. He is Chevalier des Arts et Lettres since 2014. He was Chairman of the Fondation Le Corbusier from 2013 to 2024.

Since Picons first lecture in Estonian Academy of Arts 2017, 4th of May a deep bond has developed. This was also the year when PhD supervision began for our academy’s researcher and architect, Siim Tuksam, culminating in a very successful defense and dissertation on Modulated Modularity.

Since last year, Professor Picon has been appointed to the EKA Arh International Board of Advisors. He has initiated discussions regarding the global objectives of our architecture faculty, particularly the relative significance of the technological component compared to the artistic aspect. Additionally, he has raised questions about the positioning of our research and doctoral programs, and whether these could serve as a guiding framework for our faculty’s activities, both locally and internationally.

You can find the events of the whole EKA110 Birthday Week here:
https://www.artun.ee/en/calendar/eka-110th-birthday-week/