Metaphysics and architecture

In this lecture, Federico Campagna will look at the interactions between metaphysics and architecture.

Moving from an existential analysis of the need for world-building in a chaotic universe, Campagna will consider the role of cultural producers in defining shared ideas about the nature of reality. The traditional relationship between city-planning, home-building and cosmology will serve as a starting point to discuss the opportunities and perils of designing spaces that suggest new metaphysical ideas about reality and our place within it.

Federico Campagna is an Italian philosopher and writer based in London. He is Frances A Yates Fellow at the Warburg Institute and Critical Fellow at the Royal Academy of Arts. He is the author of 'Prophetic Culture' (2021), 'Technic and Magic' (2018), 'The Last Night' (2013). He is currently writing a new book on syncretism in Mediterranean cosmologies. He holds a PhD from the Royal College of Art, an MA from Goldsmiths University of London, an MSc and BSc from Bocconi University in Milan. He also works as the director of rights at the radical publisher Verso.

The AA-Yonsei Lecture Series The Ambivalence of Design is organised by James Kwang-Ho Chung & Brendon Carlin (Unit Masters, AA Diploma 19), Jooeun Sung (Professor, Yonsei University) and Jae-Won Yi (Adjunct Professor, Yonsei University).

This event is funded by the British Council grant (British Council UK-Korea Virtual Academic Collaboration grant).

Image: The image of the earthly 'templum', from the Codex Arcerianus, c.41 v, Wolfenbüttel, Herzog-August Bibliothek