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Architecture lecture explores `Technology and Aesthetics'

"A new wave of architectural projects in the world has brought back the question of aesthetics and technology," say two eclectic scholars from the Technical University of Delft, The Netherlands, who will speak on "Technology and Aesthetics" on Tuesday, Sept. 24 at 6:30pm in Rm 10-250.

Professor Alex Tzonis and Liane Lefaivre explain that "rather than being the handmaiden of aesthetic biases, technology appears as a generative force in new aesthetic explorations and qualities in buildings." Their lecture will focus on two major tendencies: "Skin Rigorism" and "Action Architecture."

In addition to his academic life as chair of Architectural Theory and Design Theory at the university, Professor Tzonis has worked in theater and the movies (he was art director for the film Never on Sunday); authored a mystery novel (Hermes and the Golden Thinking Machine); written on architectural theory, history, design methods, community and environment; and is director of AKS (Architectural Knowledge Systems), a multidisciplinary research group in architectural cognition.

His wife and collaborator, Ms. Lefaivre, is a literary historian, writer and architectural critic who has written extensively on historical and current critical topics. She is a research fellow affiliated with the Department of Architecture at the Technical University of Delft.

For more information, call x3-7791.

A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on September 18, 1996.

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