Mellon Lecture - Antoine Picon




Canadian Centre for Architecture / Centre Canadien d’Architecture show

Summary: Antoine Picon: Smart Cities: A New Challenge for Design Smart cities represent the new digital frontier. They are where top-down monitoring meets with individual empowerment, where computation allies itself with increased sensory stimulation. Smart cities appear also as the new urban utopia. What is the true content of such utopia that appears to hesitate between technocratic and democratic leanings? How does architecture fit into this frame? What are the limits of smart cities and the “economy of knowledge” that is often associated with them? In this lecture, Senior Mellon Fellow Antoine Picon addresses these pressing issues at the intersection of critical theory and technological studies. He argues that in order to contribute fruitfully to the construction of smart cities, design must start from the changing nature of the urban subject and the urban experience. For smart cities represent far more than a series of coordinated technological innovations. They are synonymous with a new kind of urban experience. Antoine Picon is the G. Ware Travelstead Professor of the History of Architecture and Technology at Harvard Graduate School of Design. He has published numerous books and articles on the relations between architecture and cities on the one hand, science and technology on the other. Among his recent publications are Digital Culture in Architecture: An Introduction for the Design Professions (2010), Ornament: The Politics of Architecture and Subjectivity (2013), and Smart Cities: Théorie et Critique d’un Idéal Auto-Réalisateur, (2013). The CCA Mellon Foundation Senior Fellowship Program was established in 2001 to encourage advanced research in architectural history and thought. With the generous support of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, distinguished scholars of international repute are appointed Mellon Senior Fellows and join the Visiting Scholars in residence at the CCA Study Centre for extended periods each year. For a transcript and images of this lecture visit www.cca.qc.ca/mellonlectures Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montréal, 17 April 2003