Rachel Dorothy Tanur Memorial Lecture: Theodore Spyropoulos, “Quantum”

Event Description

In a world made increasingly complex by technological advancements and a rapidly changing environment, architect and educator Theodore Spyropoulos asks us to consider global challenges from a new perspective. This reframe moves us from static representational models to collaborative, ever-evolving models and interactions that allow us to see our world anew. Architecture gives us the opportunity to consider how the built environment changes our relationships with one another —humans and non-humans, objects, and the world. As we grapple with ongoing uncertainty and change, Theodore Spyropolous explores the intersections of quantum physics, artificial intelligence, and second-order cybernetics in pursuing a theory of relationality.

Speaker

Theodore Spyropoulos is an architect and educator. He is the Director of the Architectural Association’s world-renowned Design Research Lab (AADRL) in London and a resident artist at Somerset House. He previously chaired the AA Graduate School, and was a Professor of Architecture at the Staedelschule in Frankfurt and a visiting Research Fellow at MIT’s Center for Advanced Visual Studies. He co-founded the experimental art, architecture, and design practice Minimaforms with Stephen Spyropoulos. The work of Minimaforms has been acquired by international art and architecture collections, including the FRAC Centre, the Signum Foundation, and the M+ Archigram Archive. His work has been exhibited at MOMA (NYC), the Barbican Centre, the Onassis Cultural Centre, Somerset House, the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Leonardo da Vinci Museum of Science and Technology, and the ICA. He previously worked for the offices of Peter Eisenman and Zaha Hadid. In 2013, the Association for Computer-Aided Design in Architecture awarded him the ACADIA Award of Excellence for his educational work directing the AADRL. He has been published internationally and is the author of Adaptive Ecologies: Correlated Systems of Living (2013), Enabling (2010), and the forthcoming publications Quantum (2024) and Elemental: Phenomena as Technology (2025).

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