Interviewed in Vienna, 23 June 2008
Greg Lynn is the principal of Greg Lynn FORM and has taught throughout the United States and Europe. Because of his early combination of degrees in philosophy and architecture he has been involved in combining the realities of design and construction with the speculative, theoretical and experimental potentials of writing and teaching. In the autumn of 2002 he became a professor at Hochschule für Angewandte Kunst, (University of Applied Arts), Vienna. In addition, he is a studio professor at UCLA in Los Angeles and the Davenport Professor at Yale University. He writes and lectures widely on architectural design and theory.
His architectural designs have received numerous awards and have been exhibited in both architecture and art museums worldwide. In 2008 he was awarded the Golden Lion at the 11th International Venice Biennale of Architecture
Greg Lynn is the author of several books on cultural and architectural theory, including Intricacy, Animate Form, Folds, Bodies & Blobs: Collected Essays, Folding in Architecture and Embryological House and his new book, Greg Lynn FORM.
ORIS: How did it start, your trusting in technology?
Lynn: I was always a person, even as a kid, who liked drafting with technical devices. I started off using compasses and things like that, but the more I learned to draw, even as a young teenager I got interested in ships curves, French curves and mechanical splines. I always loved geometry and complex constructions, so when the computer came along it was quite a natural interest to go there. I always loved constructed drawings and technical drawings, so technology with the computer was a clear extension of that.