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Alexander Tzonis is Professor of Architectural Theory at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands and Director of the AKS-AIIA research group on architectural cognition. A graduate of Yale University, he was Associate Professor at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University until 1981, and has held visiting professorships at Columbia University, Universities of Montreal and Strasbourg. He is General Editor of the Garland Architectural Archives. Among his publications are The shape of Community (with Serge Chermayeff, 1971), Towards a Non-Oppressive Environment (1972); with Liane Lefaivre, Classical Architecture (1986), European Architecture since 1968 (1992), Architecture in North America since 1960; and a novel, Hermes and the Golden Thinking Machine (1990).

With ever-accelerating globalization, architectural thinking is undergoing one of the most destructive periods in history, with dehumanising and environmentally disastrous effects. The lecture deals with the importance of a cognitive approach to design knowledge and syncretism in creativity; rethinking and precedents; critical regionalism; and the metaphor of bio-diversity.