This paper was written for a panel discussion at the University of Sydney in 2022. This session was held to mark the commencement of Jean-Louis Cohen’s appointment as the Penelope Visiting Professor.

The intellectual provocation for the panel was Professor Cohen’s extraordinary essay, Frottage City, that reflected on the idea of quotation in literary and artistic practice, and how these concepts have informed architecture and urbanism. Speakers were asked to reflect on the ways that the matter of history figured in architectural design. To reflect on the way that buildings are quoted, sampled, translated, or invoked by new work.

Professor Cohen visited Australia later in September 2022 to deliver the lecture Frottage City at the Utzon Room, at the Sydney Opera House.

The image above is by Brett Boardman, of the Queen Victoria Building observed from the AHL Headquarters by Candalepas Associates.