Head:
Univ.-Prof. PhD Sanford Kwinter
Theory is an indispensible element of the design process
and represents the systematic component of what is increasingly referred to as “design thinking”. Academic theory has been
relegated almost exclusively to the analysis of past or existing objects and works yet it is nowhere more effectively or inventively
deployed than in the speculative and generative stages of design practice. At the Angewandte, Theory of Architecture is seen
as the integration of knowledge into design, as a discipline that deliberately changes how we think in order to change not
only how, but what we design.
In focused lectures and seminars an account of contemporary ‘thought’ (as a corrective
to the platitudes to which we are too often led by ‘common sense’) is provided primarily with respect to the systems of thought
and culture that generated it.
Addressing emerging developments in science, philosophy, urban and technological culture,
acknowledges that a new cosmopolitan, transdisciplinary and experimental approach is in great need today as architecture and
design begin to engage all aspects of cultural, technical and aesthetic speculation.
