Professor Stephen Cairns

Inaugural lecture of Professor Stephen Cairns, 8 March 2011.

Event details

Lecture title: "'The Architect Designs Everything from the Spoon to the City', and Other Urban Myths"

Date: 8 March 2011, 5.15pm

Venue: Lecture Theatre 5, Appleton Tower, Crichton Street, Edinburgh

Lecture abstract

Design used to be regarded as a comprehensive practice that could find application at almost any scale - "from the spoon to the city" as architect Ernesto Rogers once put it.

But what is design today? What is it to think through drawing, in conjunction with materials such as concrete, glass, polystyrene or wood, or immaterials such as sound, light and atmosphere? And how do such practices operate in the flux of contemporary cities?

This lecture addresses these questions in order to consider the legacy of design thinking and its ongoing relevance in the context of contemporary cities. It pays particular attention to cities of the Global South where pressures of rapid urbanisation are most keenly felt.

Lecture video