<!--StartFragment--> The Delos Mutation: Interdisciplinary Entanglements between Biology and Architecture 1963 – 1975 <!--EndFragment-->

This article traces the interdisciplinary entanglement between biology and architecture at The Delos Symposion, a series of annual week-long architecture and urbanism symposia convened by architect and planner Constantinos Doxiadis (1913–1975), ten of which took place on a cruise ship in the Mediterranean Sea between 1963 and 1972. These Delos symposia stand out as a pioneering interdisciplinary initiative and a unique think-tank for future-oriented developments in both architectural theory and biology, united by a common interest in cybernetics. Biologist Conrad Hal Waddington (1905–1975), who attended all ten Delos gatherings, was a forerunner of such new developments in biology; at Delos he discussed how his ground-breaking theory of epigenetics would change how designers would build, plan, and conceptualize buildings and cities.  This article is a critical study of how Waddington’s epigenetic theory mutated into architecture and urban theory. First, I discuss Doxiadis’ holistic urban theory of ekistics in relation to Waddington’s epigenetic theory by focusing on the notion of open-endedness in the two theories. The article then argues that the discussions on planning and design at Delos affected Waddington’s thinking, changing a structural belief in planning into a post-structural disbelief in certitude. The interdisciplinary Delos discussions about planning and architecture triggered the scientist to turn toward aesthetics and ethical epistemology as a response to an uncertain future — a transmutation that impelled ethical and epistemological developments that still resonate in critical discourses in the humanities.