About the Lecture

Professor Spuybroek will discuss why Ruskin’s notion of the Gothic is a much better candidate for digital architecture than Deleuze’s Baroque Fold. He will advocate the return to Ruskin’s 'vital' beauty, while steering away from the Scrutonian call for harmony and 'typical' beauty.

This book has been praised as a breakthrough. In Wired Magazine, Steven Shaviro writes, "The Sympathy of Things is a stirring call to action; an amazing reconstruction of the ideas of the Victorian sage John Ruskin; and, above all, a visionary look at the inner life of things. Lars Spuybroek makes the case that aesthetics is first philosophy, and proposes a radical new aesthetics for the digital age.”


Spuybroek has lectured on his book around the globe.