Antoine Picon
Biographical interview
SUMMARY
This interview of Antoine Picon reflects on his career in architecture, particularly focusing on his time in France before moving to the United States. He grew up in a cultured but not wealthy household. He studied at the École Polytechnique in France and almost pursued architecture alongside engineering. During his time there, he found design studios extremely useful in shaping how he thought about constraint, materiality, and understanding the real-world. Picon mentions how his move from France to the US developed his writing and why he began to focus on topics such as digital culture, ornament, and smart cities. Picon also recalls encountering texts of Michel Foucault, Bruno Latour, Gilbert Simondon, André Leroi-Gourhan. Towards the end, he reflects on the shift in U.S. architectural history towards STS and institutions contrasting his own move toward intellectual history linked to contemporary design discourse. Over a career with more than 500 essays and books, in English and French, Picon continues to connect history, theory, and contemporary practice.
BIOGRAPHY
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.
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