Perhaps one of the last of the great French intellectuals of the 20th century, Paul Virilio devoted part of his career to urbanism and architecture, as much on his own (writing about the World War ii bunkers in his native Normandy) and in collaboration with Claude Parent, with whom he developed the ‘oblique function’ idea that would much influence the organicists of the 1960s. Former director of studies at the École Spéciale d’Architecture in Paris, Virilio had a wide following among members of the public at large, captivating audiences with an always visionary philosophy and his great theme: the consequences of increasing technification of the world.