One of the most memorable talks from this year’s TED conference in Vancouver was from Bran Ferren who spoke about combining art and engineering to create a modern-day Pantheon. The former Head of Research and Development at Walt Disney Imagineering and founder of Applied Minds, Ferren describes the brilliance behind the Roman temple built over 2000 years ago while citing the likes of Michelangelo, Da Vinci and Benjamin Franklin—inventors who didn’t consider art, design and science to be separate, as they’re so often taught in schools today. The central question Ferren poses is: What will today’s Pantheon be, a combination of creative design and technical advances so profound that it will still inspire thousands of years from now? (His suggestion: autonomous cars.)
The Modern Day Pantheon