The two-day symposium convenes an interdisciplinary group of scholars to examine, rekindle, and expand biography as a vital method in studies of design and technology.
Through presentations, moderated discussions, oral histories, and archival workshops, we will collectively consider questions such as: How can methods, sensibilities, and intuitions from biography inform how we examine actors, events, and effects of digital technology development and use in design and creative fields? What is the role of the personal archive in writing such histories? If we move beyond celebrating the “lives of great men,” “inventors,” or “architect-auteurs,” how can we employ biographic approaches in research and writing to foreground gender and disability perspectives, or reveal hidden voices in the archives? What might biography mean as archives themselves become reconfigured as and through data, and as the line between the human and artificial systems becomes increasingly blurred and contested?
The event is free and open to the public. Please use the Canadian Centre for Architecture main door at 1920, rue Baile Montréal, Québec H3H 2S6 Canada
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DAY 1: Thursday, 7 May 2026
Shaughnessy House, Canadian Centre for Architecture
9:30 – 9:45 Welcome and Opening Remarks
PANEL 1: TROPES
Moderator and respondent: Rafico Ruiz, Canadian Centre for Architecture
9:45 – 10:00 Introductions
10:00 – 10:20 Mark Hayward (York University) “Radar, Ratings and the Commercialization of Real-Time Information”
10:20 – 10:40 Giulia Boller (ETH) “Building Models in the Computer: Structural Design Processes Between Analogue and Digital”
10:40 – 11:00 Ultan Byrne (University of Toronto) “Epistolic Architecture: Networks of Authorship and Correspondence in the Design of U.S. Federal Buildings, 1852-1939”
11:00 – 11:20 Break
11:20 –12:00 Roundtable Discussion
I. THINGS
Moderator and respondent: Claire Zimmerman, University of Toronto
13:00 – 13:15 Introductions
13:15 – 13.35 Matthew Hunter (McGill University) “The Heart of the Andes Insurance: Biography of a Corporate Melodrama”
13:35 – 13:55 Albena Yaneva (Politecnico di Torino) [on zoom] “Living Archives: Stories of Design and the Rethinking of Historicity”
13:55 – 14:15 Daniel Cardoso Llach (Carnegie Mellon University) “n-graphies”
14:15 – 14.35 Break
14:35 – 15:15 Roundtable Discussion
III. AGENTS
Moderator and respondent: David Theodore, McGill University
15:30 – 15:45 Introductions
15:45 – 16:05 Evangelos Kotsioris (MoMA) “Inventing “Construction Cybernetics’ Dmitry N. Yablonsky and the Retooling of Architectural Practice in Kiev, 1970–77”
16:05 – 16:25 Andrew Witt (Washington University in St.Louis) “Mapping the Chronofile: The Data Visualization of Biography”
16:25 – 16:45 Anna-Maria Meister (Kunsthistorisches Institute in Florenz – Max Planck Institute / KIT / saai archive) “What if An Archive Forgets What it Is?”
16:45 – 17:05 Break
17:05 – 17:45 Roundtable Discussion
PUBLIC KEYNOTE
18:00 – 19:30 Eden Medina (MIT) “Assembling Stories of the Disappeared: From Documents to Data” (part of the CCA Public Programming)
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DAY 2: Friday, 8 May 2026
Shaughnessy House and Study Room, Canadian Centre for Architecture
OPENING KEYNOTE
9:30 –10:30 Mara Mills (NYU)
CONVERSATIONS
11:00 – 11:45 Chris Yessios (Ohio State University) in conversation with Eliza Pertigkiozoglou (McGill University)
11:45 – 12:15 Break
12:15 – 13:00 Bernard Cache (EPFL) (on zoom) in conversation with Emma Larcelet (EPFL)
EVIDENCE (Shaughnessy House)
14:00 –15:15 Show & Tell: Lionel March Fonds, Part A: Philip Steadman (UCL) (on zoom) and Part B: George Stiny (MIT) (on zoom) in conversation with Theodora Vardouli
15:15 – 15:30 Break (move to Study Room)
15:30 – 16:15 Show & Tell – “Architecture and its Image” (1989), Eve Blau (Harvard University) in conversation with Matthew Allen
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Biographies of the Digital is made possible by generous support from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Peter Guo-hua School of Architecture, McGill University, the Research Group on Democracy, Space, and Technology at the Yan P. Lin Centre, McGill University, the Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Arts, Washington University in St. Louis, and the Canadian Centre for Architecture.
