Lecture AGT IV: Things of Modernity

The two-semester introduction to the history of architecture focuses on "Things of Modernity" – elements, buildings, and networks from the second Industrial Revolution of the 1850s to the oil crisis of the 1970s in Europe that have changed architecture. Their technical, scientific, and cultural significance is highlighted, making them characteristic of modernity. The aim is to exemplarily explore the relationship between architectural and discursive practices in their historical depth and ideological breadth, and to make them fruitful for contemporary architecture.

Seminar: Architectural Ecology III. In the Archive

This semester we continue our seminar on Architectural Ecology in the archive, identifying archival gaps, seeking for alternative readings of evidence, and writing counter-histories of the plural relationships between architecture, ecology and the environment.

Lecture AGT VIII: On Arrows

In the 1950s, the figure of the arrow had a strange kind of ubiquity in architectural drawings, publications, and advertisements, symbolizing everything from the circulation of cold and warm air in a kitchen fridge to the flow of traffic in assorted New Towns. Twenty-five years earlier there were barely any arrows within architectural publications, and 15 years later they had all but disappeared.

Focus Works

A focus work offers students the opportunity to deepen the knowledge gained in the field of history, criticism and theory of architecture in writing.

Publication: On Arrows

A series of essays on the history of British postwar architecture through the concept of performance - and the ubiquitous (but elusive) image of the arrow.

Professor Dr. Laurent Stalder

The chair seeks to understand the profound changes in technology and society that took place over the course of the twentieth century – on the one hand as a new framework for architectural production, and on the other as new points of reference in architectural design. Established methodologies in the history and theory of architecture are thereby complemented by approaches derived from the history of technology and social history. Thus the traditional understanding of architecture – as a discipline defined primarily in terms of authorship – is called into question and assessed in the light of actual building practice.

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Professorship for Theory of Architecture : Overview and News