In this first volume of Algorithms and Parallel VLSI Architectures are collected 21 lectures and tutorials which have been presented at the above mentioned Workshop. A companion volume entitled Algorithms and Parallel VLSI Architectures Volume B - Proceedings contains a further 50 proceedings papers. There has been a growing interest in the interplay between the development of algorithms and the design of architectures. Recent developments in VLSI technology combined with increasing insight into the theoretical basis of numerical computations has led to an increasing demand for VLSI Algorithms for the sake of the vast application potentialities in real-time signal and image processing, space-time critical scientific computations and other large and structured problems. The lectures and tutorials which are included in this volume elaborate and illustrate such mutual influences between theoretical results and their algorithmic and architectural representations and implementations. The papers present some intriguing results from recent developments in the areas of network theory and linear algebra.