The “Anxiety of Influence” in the history of architecture and design

Join a panel of architecture academics as they explore influence in the built environments on display in The Grand Tour exhibition.

In this session academics from the Australian Centre for Architectural History and Urban and Cultural Heritage (ACAHUCH) will take part in a lively panel discussion inspired by The Grand Tour exhibition. Drawing on exhibited prints, Associate Professor Amanda Achmadi, Professor Philip Goad, Professor Hannah Lewi, Associate Professor Andrew Saniga and Dr Soon-Tzu Speechley will discuss the way in which influence has endured as a vital creative mechanism in the conception, design and patronage of architecture and landscapes. Taking on literary critic Harold Bloom’s notion of the “anxiety of influence,” the panel will explore architecture as an ongoing dialogue between originality and inheritance. At a time when culture circulates endlessly online and AI reworks past forms into new iterations, viewing influence through a critical lens feels more urgent now than ever.