Towards an epistemology of architecture

Abstract

The integration of schools of architecture into France's "communautés d'universités et d'établissements" is a recent development. While this presence reflects the weight that architecture may have in the changing landscape of higher education, it also raises a whole series of questions concerning its positioning in the world of science and the arts. Is architecture a discipline? How does it relate to the humanities and the exact sciences? What role does architectural knowledge and know-how play in a rapidly evolving disciplinary universe in a changing world?

Panos Mantziaras

Panos Mantziaras is an architect and engineer from Athens Polytechnic. He holds a master's degree in architecture from the University of Pennsylvania, and a doctorate in urban planning from the Université de Paris 8. After working as an architect in Greece and France, he has been Head of the Bureau for Architectural, Urban and Landscape Research at the French Ministry of Culture and Communication since 2010. In this capacity, he launched the Ignis mutat res research program, while teaching at Columbia University, the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne, and the Clermont-Ferrand, Lyon and Paris-Malaquais schools of architecture.

His articles have appeared in Planning Perspectives, AMC, Quaderns and Thresholds. He is the author of La ville-paysage (2008).