A Space Odyssey and the Symbolism of the Monolith – lecture by prof. dr. Marijan Vejvoda

Marijan Vejvoda graduated from the Faculty of Architecture, University of Zagreb. He researched the applications of cable television in urban planning in his master’s degree at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, USA. PhD in Technical Sciences, University of Zagreb. Worked in Rome in the studio of prof. architect Luigi Piccinato (mainly urbanism), Edinburgh with Robert Matthew, Johnson Marshall and Partners (polyclinic and university architecture), full-time lecturer at Manchester College of Art over Design. Planner at the Upper Adriatic Project, Rijeka Urban Bureau (General Plan of Rijeka), Professor at the Faculty of Tourism and Hotel Management, Opatija – Ika and Philosopher Faculty of Rijeka, now at the Academy of Applied Arts, Rijeka (courses in architecture, urbanism, ecology and visual media). Worked on documentary and feature films and author and co-author of many thematic exhibitions and children’s art workshops.

A Space Odyssey and the Symbolism of the Monolith is the topic of tonight’s lecture. From architectural and urban significance, to social, human and spiritual. Marijan Vejvoda is an absolutely atypical person who most people in Rijeka know as the “guy in the skirt”, and who says that his life motto is Tzu-Gung’s parable about the dangers of technology, which you can read below.

“I have heard my teacher say that whoever uses machines does all his work like a machine. He who does his work like a machine grows a heart like a machine, and he who carries the heart of a machine in his breast loses his simplicity. He who has lost his simplicity becomes unsure in the strivings of his soul. Uncertainty in the strivings of the soul is something which does not agree with honest sense. It is not that I do not know of such things; I am ashamed to use them.”