CDVE2026 Keynote Speaker

Professor Ludger Hovestadt

Professor Ludger Hovestadt worked as a full Professor of Digital Architectonics in the Department of Architecture before his retirement recently. He joined ETH Zurich as a full professor in 2000. He laid the foundations for digital architectonics. His main interest is in developing tools for the design and management of over-complex systems, drawing on interdisciplinary research involving architecture, computer science, mechanical engineering, robotics and cognitive psychology. He believes that the current need is for research into adapting technological developments made in other disciplines to the building industry (with its long-term basis), given the exceptional importance of the building industry, both ecologically and economically. The roles in which Ludger Hovestadt has served the Department include that of Head of Institute. His speech title and abstract are the following.

I Have Seen Places Where Memories Talk

Abstract

I Have Seen Places Where Memories Talk. Meridians and Parallels. An Architectural Tale.

This story is a lie, children, but true nonetheless — otherwise you couldn't tell it.
For two hundred years architecture aligned itself along the parallels of a spinning earth: numbers turned like the planet, their traces visible but never audible, and building meant refining what control had already drawn. Then came electrons, and the monstrous. The cut-up artists broke the sequences but reached only silence.

They overlooked that the snippets had no cause, and came from another planet — meridional, simultaneous, algebraic rather than arithmetic. This is where our machines now generate images of under refinement that nobody watches or praises anymore. The old god is dead; the new powers laugh from afar.
Some, however, understood that here one speaks with one's own voice and does not rely on given books. Only there do places emerge that remember and articulate rather than imagine and refine.

Organizers

Leuphana University of Lüneburg

University of Balearic Islands

Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology

Technical Sponsor

Visual Analytics and Communication Technical Committee

Proceedings Publisher

Supporting Organizations

Information Visualization Society

Interaction Design Foundation