Speech: Genius loci

The theme for this issue of speech: might strike some readers as mystic, strange, abstract, and so of little relevance to the rational and practical discipline of architecture. Nevertheless, genius loci - a notion which traces its origins to antiquity and means 'spirit of the place' ('genius' of place or its 'guardian angel' according to an alternative interpretation) - is of the utmost importance for architecture, if only because buildings do not exist separately from place.