Antoine Picon
G. Ware Travelstead Professor of the History of Architecture and Technology

Antoine Picon is the G. Ware Travelstead Professor of the History of Architecture and Technology at the GSD. He teaches courses in the history and theory of architecture and technology. Trained as an engineer, architect, and historian, Picon works on the history of architectural and urban technologies from the eighteenth century to the present. His French Architects and Engineers in the Age of Enlightenment (1988; English translation, 1992) is a synthetic study of the disciplinary “deep structures” of architecture, garden design, and engineering in the eighteenth century, and their transformations as new issues of territorial management and infrastructure-systems planning were confronted. Whereas Claude Perrault (1613-1688) ou la Curiosité d'un classique (1988) traces the origin of these changes at the end of the seventeenth century, L'Invention de l’Ingénieur Moderne, L'Ecole des Ponts et Chaussées 1747-1851 (1992) envisages their full development from the mid-eighteenth century to the 1850s. Picon has also worked on the relations between society, technology and utopia. This is in particular the theme of Les Saint-Simoniens: Raison, Imaginaire, et Utopie (2002), a detailed study of the Saint-Simonian movement that played a seminal role in the emergence of industrial modernity. Picon’s most recent 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. He has published in particular Digital Culture in Architecture: An Introduction for the Design Profession (2010), Ornament: The Politics of Architecture and Subjectivity (2013), Smart Cities: Théorie et Critique d'un Idéal Autoréalisateur (2013), and Smart Cities: A Spatialised Intelligence (2015).
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, a well as the Georges Sarton Medal of the University of Gand. In 2010, he was elected a member of the French Académie des Technologies. He is Chevalier des Arts et Lettres since 2014. He is also Chairman of the Fondation Le Corbusier.
Picon received science and engineering degrees from the Ecole Polytechnique and from the Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées, an architecture degree from the Ecole d'Architecture de Paris-Villemin, and a PhD in history from the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales.
Courses
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Cities, Infrastructures, and Politics: From Renaissance to Smart Technologies
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Thesis Extension in Satisfaction of Degree Doctor of Design
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Architecture and Construction: From the Vitruvian Tradition to the Digital
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Cities by Design I
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Building, Texts, and Contexts: Between Origins and Modernity: 18th- and 19th-Century Architecture
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Thesis Extension in Satisfaction of Degree Doctor of Design
Publications
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Smart Cities: A Spatialised Intelligence
By Antoine Picon
November 2015
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Ornament: The Politics of Architecture and Subjectivity
By Antoine Picon
September 2013
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Smart Cities: Théorie et Critique d’un Idéal Auto-réalisateur
By Antoine Picon
August 2013
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Marne-la-Vallée: De la Ville Nouvelle à la Ville Durable
By Antoine Picon
April 2012
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Digital Culture in Architecture: An Introduction for the Design Professions
By Antoine Picon
August 2010
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Marc Mimram Architect-Engineer: Hybrid
By Antoine Picon
January 2007
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Dictionnaire des Utopies
By Antoine Picon
March 2006
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Tra utopia e ruggine. Paesaggi dell'ingegneria dal Settecento a oggi
By Antoine Picon
January 2006
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Architecture and the Sciences: Exchanging Metaphors
By Antoine Picon
January 2003
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Les Saint-Simoniens: Raison, Imaginaire, et Utopie
By Antoine Picon
August 2002
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L'aventure du balnéaire: La Grande Motte de Jean Balladur
By Antoine Picon
January 1999
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Le dessus des cartes/Un atlas parisien
By Antoine Picon
January 1999
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La ville territoire des cyborgs
By Antoine Picon
January 1998
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L'Art de l'ingénieur: constructeur, entrepeneur, inventeur
By Antoine Picon
January 1997
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La Ville et La Guerre
By Antoine Picon
January 1996
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L'Invention de L'Ingénieur Moderne: l'Ecole des ponts et chausses, 1747-1851
By Antoine Picon
January 1992
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French Architects and Engineers in the Age of Enlightenment
By Antoine Picon
January 1992
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L'Ingénieur Artiste : Dessins anciens de l'école des ponts et chaussées
By Antoine Picon
January 1989
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Claude Perrault, 1613-1688, ou, La curiosité d'un classique
By Antoine Picon
January 1988