ARCHITECTURE AND CURVATURE: IT’S COMPLICATED…
Arielle Blonder (Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, IL)

Curved space has long shaped human experience, accompanying habitation since its earliest forms, from caves and earthen shelters to domes and vaulted halls. Yet Western architecture gradually adopted an orthogonal logic, reinforced by Cartesian geometry and culminating in the planar aesthetics of modernism. In recent decades, curvilinear thinking has returned to architectural discourse, influenced by philosophy, digital design, and new structural and expressive ambitions. Curved surfaces can offer significant advantages, including structural efficiency, climatic performance, and rich spatial experience, but their fabrication remains complex and resource-intensive. This lecture explores emerging alternatives inspired by natural morphogenesis, where shape arises from internal material organization rather than external formwork or moulds. Focusing on recent research in self-shaping materials and Frustrated Composites, the talk presents how programmed internal stresses can generate complex curved surfaces autonomously, suggesting new pathways for architecture where geometry emerges, rather than being imposed.

Arielle Blonder is an architect, combining academic activity with architectural practice ranging from architectural design and unique outdoor spaces to sensorial environments for people with special needs, exhibitions, textile design and more. Her research is centred on composite materials and fabric materiality, searching for novel processes for architectural applications of fiberglass (FRP).

In English

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Idea & Organization:
Simon Blatt, InterMediation / Mathematics Department, University of Salzburg
Katarzyna Grebosz-Haring, InterMediation /Inter-University Organization Science & Arts, Mozarteum University Salzburg, University of Salzburg

Organized by focus area (Inter)Mediation. Music – Mediation – Context / Inter-University Organization Science & Arts, University of Salzburg/Mozarteum University Salzburg in cooperation with the Mathematics department, University of Salzburg in series Music, the Arts & Math.

Participation-link here