From Gothic cathedrals to software: a lecture by Professor Manfred Nagel

Have you ever heard of the connection between Gothic architecture and design and project management in construction or software engineering? Probably not – just like everyone else at FIT! On Wednesday 30 September, from 4.00 pm, you’ll have the chance to find out more about this topic at a lecture by Professor Manfred Nagl from the prestigious German technical university RWTH Aachen.

“Gothic churches, their design, and similarities to design in civil or software engineering”
📅Wednesday 30 September 2026, 4.00 pm
📍FIT VUT, A113

Manfred Nagl’s lecture will highlight surprising parallels between the way Gothic cathedrals were designed and modern principles used in software development and other technical fields. Using Reims Cathedral as an example, he will present principles that we now recognise as, for instance, design patterns, parametric or generative design, the reuse of existing solutions, and working with different levels of detail.

Come along to hear this exceptionally interesting topic in person or join us remotely; and if you have colleagues who are interested in construction and Gothic churches, be sure to invite them too!

The event is part of the VGS-IT (Invited Talks on Vision, Graphics, and Speech) series. This series is dedicated to topics such as machine learning, speech processing, computer vision and large language models.