Anna-Maria Meister is an architect, historian and writer, and professor of architecture theory and science at TU Darmstadt. She works at the intersection of architecture's histories and the histories of science and technology, focusing on the interdependencies of processes of design with the design of processes, especially regarding their political, social, and aesthetic consequences. Meister received a joint PhD degree in the History and Theory of Architecture and the Council of the Humanities from Princeton University, and holds degrees in architecture from Columbia University, New York, and the TU Munich and is a licensed architect. She was a fellow at the Max-Planck Institute for History of Science, Berlin, and a postdoctoral fellow at the TU Munich. Her work has been supported by grants and fellowships from the Graham Foundation, the Berlin Program for Advanced German and European Studies, DAAD, and Columbia University, among others. She is currently completing a book manuscript titled Formatting Objects, Forming Values: The Paper Architectures of 20th Century Germany and a special issue for the Journal of the History of Knowledge on entangled temporalities. Her writing has been published in Britisch Journal for the History of Science, Architectural Histories, Harvard Design Magazine, Volume, Uncube, and as book chapters in The Architecture Machine (2020) and Dust and Data (2019), among others. She is co-curator and co-editor of the international collaborative project "Radical Pedagogies"; the eponymous book came out with MIT Press in spring 2022.

anna-maria.meister∂kit.edu

• Colomina, Beatriz, Ignacio Gonzalez Galan, Evangelos Kotsioris, Anna-Maria Meister. Radical Pedagogies. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press (2022).
• Meister, Anna-Maria. „Archives, Bureaucracies, Architecture: Now You See Me, Now You Don't“ in Dimensions, issue 1 (Spring 2021).
• Meister, Anna-Maria. „Ernst Neufert's 'Lebensgestaltungslehre': Formatting Life beyond the Built“ in „Learning by the Book“ (eds. A. Creager, M. Grote, E. Leong) BJHS Themes 5 (2020): 167–85. mehr
• Meister, Anna-Maria. „'Architects and Housewives': Rationalizing Architecture after WWI“ in a special issue of Architecture Histories (Journal of the EAHN). Eds. S. Hochhäusl and E. Sassin.
• Meister, Anna-Maria. „Paper(less) Architecture: Medial and Institutional Superimpositions“ in The Architecture Machine. The Role of Computers in Architecture. Edited by Teresa Fankhänel and Andres Lepik (Birkhäuser: 2020).
• Meister, Anna-Maria. „From Musterhaus to Meisterhäuser: A trajectory of typologies,“ in Dust and Data, ed. Ines Weizman. Berlin: Spectorbooks (2019).
• Meister, Anna-Maria. „Paper Constructions: Ethics and Aesthetics on Paper“ in RadDAR, issue 1 (January 2019).
• Colomina, Beatriz, Ignacio Gonzalez Galan, Evangelos Kotsioris, Anna-Maria Meister. „Radical Pedagogies: Notes Towards a Taxonomy of Global Experiments“ in Building Cultures Valparaiso: Pedagogy, Practice and Poetry at the Valparaiso School of Architecture and Design, eds. Sony Devabhaktuni, Patricia Guaita and Cornelia Tapparelli. London: Routledge Chapman&Hall (2016).
• Meister, Anna-Maria. „Formatting the Modern Dream“ in Harvard Design Magazine issue 43 „Shelf Life“ (Fall 2016).
• Meister, Anna-Maria. „The Radical Pedagogies Project“ (co-authored with Beatriz Colomina, Ignacio G. Galán, Evangelos Kotsioris) inVolume n. 45 „Learning“ (2015).
• Colomina, Beatriz, Ignacio Gonzalez Galan, Evangelos Kotsioris, Anna-Maria Meister. „Radical Pedagogies: Educating Change“ in Quaderns d'Arquitectura i Urbanisme, Publicació del Col∙legi d'arquitectes de Catalunya, 267 (2015).
• Meister, Anna-Maria. „Radical Remoteness: The HfG Ulm as Institution of Dissidence,“ in Architecture and the Paradox of Dissidence, ed. Ines Weizman. London: Routledge (2013).
• Meister, Anna-Maria. „Für James Bond reicht's noch (Mendelsohn's Red-Banner Factory in St. Petersburg)“ in Baumeister 2 (February 2012).
• Colomina, Beatriz, Esther Choi, Ignacio Gonzalez Galan, Anna-Maria Meister. „Radical Pedagogies in Architectural Education“ in Architectural Review 1388 Volume CCXXXII (October 2012).
• Meister, Anna-Maria. „Architecture in Uniform.“ Review of Architecture in Uniform by Jean-Louis Cohen, in Archplus 204 (October 2011).
• Meister, Anna-Maria. „The Space Left Behind“ in Reception Rooms. Princeton: IHUM (2011).

• "Radical Pedagogies." Invited Talk (with B. Colomina, I. G. Galán and E. Kotsioris) at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, September 2022.
• "Radical Pedagogies: Methods of a Global Project." Eingeladener Vortrag an der Tokyo University, Februar 2022.
• "Processing Models, Modelling Processes." Eingeladener Vortrag an dem Symposium Digital.Visual.Material., Carnegie Mellon University, May 2021.
• "Of Volunteers, Vereine and Housewives: The Makers of Modern German Architecture." Eingeladener Vortrag, ETH Zurich, April 2021.
• "Gleichheit, Gemeinnützigkeit, Globaler Export: Das DIN Institut in der modernen Architektur." Eingeladener Vortrag, ETH Zurich, März 2021.
• "Architecture from the Karteikasten: Ernst Neufert's Total Systems of Order." Eingeladener Vortrag, Center for Critical Studies in Architecture (CCSA), German Architecture Museum (DAM) Frankfurt, Januar 2020.
• "Radical Pedagogies." Eingeladener Vortrag an dem Symposium Architectures of Education, Nottingham Contemporary, November 2019.
• "Scripting, Norming, Regulating: A Proto-Algorithmic Architecture History?" Eingeladener Vortrag im Forschungsseminar 1955-1961 Design and Languagues, Ecole Nationale Superiereure Paris-Saclay, Paris, May 2019.
• "Radical Pedagogies: Radicalism versus Institutionality." Eingeladener Vortrag im Rahmen der Reihe Testing University, HafenCity Universität Hamburg, Januar 2019.

• "Radical Pedagogies. Action-Reaction-Interaction." Installation auf der Architekturbiennale Venedig (mit B. Colomina, B. Eversole, E. Kotsioris, I. G. Galán, F. Vannucchi), Venedig, Mai-November 2014.
• "Radical Pedagogies. A (provisional) Cartography." Installation auf der 3. Lisbon Architecture Triennale Close, Closer (mit B. Colomina, I. G. Galán und E. Kotsioris), Lisbon, September 2013.
• "The Secret Life of Plants." Ausstellung (mit A. Acciavatti and J. Dolven), Princeton University, 2013.
• "Thesis Matter(s)." Ausstellung und Multimedia Installation (mit Ignacio G. Galan, B. Eversole, F. Vannucchi), Princeton University, 2012.

Teresa Fankhänel is an architectural curator and editor-in-chief of the Architectural Exhibition Review and is Interim Professor at the Chair of Architectural Theory since October 2024. Before joining KIT, she was Associate Curator at the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University and Curator at the TUM Architecture Museum, where she organized the exhibition “The Architecture Machine. The Role of Computers in Architecture” and the eponymous book (Birkhäuser 2020). She is the author of “The Architectural Models of Theodore Conrad: The ‘miniature boom’ of mid-century modernism” (Bloomsbury 2021) and co-editor of “Der konstruierende Blick: Fotografisches Gestalten in der Architektur” (Schlaufen 2024) and ”Are You A Model? On an Architectural Medium of Spatial Exploration” (Jovis 2024). She holds an M.A. in Architectural History from the Bartlett School of Architecture and a Ph.D. from the University of Zurich.

teresa.fankhaenel∂kit.edu

Tom Wilkinson is a writer and historian specializing in modern and contemporary architecture, with a focus on modern German visual culture. His current research centers on waste and abandoned spaces within modernism, including landfills, sewers, and deserted malls. He holds a PhD in art history from University College London. In addition to his role at KIT, Tom Wilkinson lectures in architectural history at Birkbeck University of London. He previously taught at the Courtauld Institute and was a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the Warburg Institute. Currently Tom is working on his upcoming book, "Emergency Money," about German hyperinflation's visual culture, to be published by MIT in 2024. His debut book, "Bricks and Mortals: Ten Great Buildings and the People They Made," was published by Bloomsbury in 2014. Since 2012 Tom is history editor for Architectural Review and has contributed to various publications, including The Guardian, Jacobin, Domus, Tribune, Apollo, and Architect's Journal. He is also a co-founder and co-director of New Architecture Writers, a program he established in 2017, dedicated to empowering young people of color.

thomas.wilkinson∂kit.edu

• Emergency Money: Notgeld in the Image Economy of the German Inflation, 1914-1923 (under contract with MIT; forthcoming in 2024).
• ‘Life in Ruins: The Fetishization of Decay in Contemporary Architecture’, in Otto Habeck and Frank Schmitz (eds), Ruinen und vergessene Orte: Materialität im Verfall – Nachnutzungen – Umdeutungen (Bielefeld: Transcript, 2023).
• ‘Junkology’, in Ursula Schulz-Dornburg, Huts, Temples, Castles (London: MACK, 2022).
• ‘Notgeld’, in Barbara Penner, Adrian Forty, Olivia Horsfall Turner, and Miranda Critchley (eds), Extinct: A Compendium of Obsolete Objects (London: Reaktion, 2021), pp.220-223.
• ‘Romford: The Suburban Vanguard’, in Owen Hatherley (ed.) The Alternative Guide to London’s Boroughs (London: Open House, 2020), pp. 80-86.
• ‘Why are Berlin’s New Buildings So Intent on Looking Backwards?’, Apollo, October 2020.
• ‘A Journey Around My Flat: Shut-in Strategies’, Architectural Review, June 2020
• ‘Money Matters: The Art of the German Inflation’, Apollo, February 2020 
• ‘Art History on the Radio: Walter Benjamin and Wilhelm Pinder 1930/1940’, Oxford Art Journal 39, no. 1 (2016), 49-66.
• Bricks and Mortals: Ten Great Buildings and the People they Made (London: Bloomsbury, 2014).

• ‘Chiaroscuro: A Social History of Nightclubs’, Nightclubs and Metropolis, invited talk, Seoul, September 2023.
• ‘Siegfried Kracauer: Architectural Employee’, invited talk for Struggles in the Concrete – Architecture, Architectural History and the Marxist Tradition, Birkbeck, University of London, April 2023.
• ‘Junkology: Ursula Schulz-Dornburg in Jongensland’, invited talk for Come Out and Play! Youth and Placemaking in Public Space, Aedes Architectural Forum, Berlin, April 2023.
• ‘Mies: the Re-enchantment of Technology’, invited talk at Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, January 2022.
• ‘Architectural Criticism’, invited talk for Cardiff University School of Architecture, January 2022.
• ‘Money Talking to Itself: Central Bank Museums’, conference paper for Making the Social World Objective, University of Zürich, November 2021.
• ‘Ruins of the Future: Building Decay in Contemporary Architecture’, conference paper for Ruins from the Perspective of Cultural Studies and Humanities, University of Hamburg, April 2021.
• ‘Alchemy in Reverse: Emergency Money of the German Inflation’, invited talk for the Courtauld Institute, November 2020. 
• ‘The Network is the Public: Altered Postcards in Twentieth Century Germany’, conference paper for The Circulation of Images, Centre of Excellence Jean Monnet IMAGO (Paris, École normale supérieure), in partnership with the University of Geneva (Chair of Digital Humanities), Purdue University, and the Beaux Arts de Paris, June 2020.

• ‘Jamming the Discourse Network: Politics and the Postcard in Early Twentieth-Century Germany’, conference paper for College Art Association Annual Conference, Chicago, February 2020.

Sina Brückner-Amin is an architectural historian, media scholar, and curator. As a researcher, she is interested in bureaucracy and architecture, the production of space and knowledge through (non-architectural) media, and critical histories of large-scale planning. Her dissertation "From Farms to the 'New Frontier': The Planning of UC Irvine's Educational Environment, 1932-1965" (summa cum laude) was awarded the KIT Dissertation Prize 2024, marking the first time it was awarded to a Doctor of Philosophy. As a postdoctoral researcher, Sina works on strategies and research projects in the saai archive. From 2020-2023 she was a PhD student in the LOEWE project "Architectures of Ordering. Practices and Discourses between Design and Knowledge" (Goethe University Frankfurt, TU Darmstadt) and previously assistant curator at the Architekturmuseum der TU München, where she worked on exhibitions such as "Neue Heimat," "The Architecture Machine," and "DesignBuild in Architecture." Sina holds degrees in Art History, Media Studies and Curatorial Studies from Goethe University Frankfurt and the Städelschule Academy of Fine Arts. During her studies, she curated the cabinet exhibition "Treasures from the Archive 7: Zaha Hadid" at the DAM and a performance series at the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics. Her texts have appeared in the catalogs of the Architekturmuseum, Architectural Theory Review, JAE, sub\urban, Die Architekt, Kunstchronik and Passe-Avant, among others.

brueckner-amin∂kit.edu

Maryia Rusak is an architect and architectural historian who works with transnational histories. She is currently a Junior Research Fellow at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. Recently, she has been an ETH Postdoctoral Fellow (2022-24) at the Chair of the History and Theory of Urban Design, ETH Zurich. Her current research projects range from investigating the Nordic architecture of foreign aid in postcolonial Africa to the 1960s histories of early use of intra-European programming in architecture. As a researcher, Maryia is particularly interested in the histories of everyday objects, networks of bureaucratic institutions, obscure intricacies of architectural production and, in general, how buildings are made. 

Maryia completed her PhD at the Oslo School of Architecture and Design (AHO) in 2022; she holds an M.Arch. in Sustainable Urban Planning and Design from KTH, Stockholm, and a BA in Architecture from Princeton University, USA. Recently, she was a Visiting Fellow at the Architectural Theory Research Centre at the University of Queensland, Australia (2023) and a research fellow at the Bauhaus Global Modernism Lab in Dessau (2020). 

Maryia’s writings appeared in the Architectural Theory Review (2022), The Journal of Architecture (2024), OASE (2024), Footprint (2024), Journal of Architectural Design and History (2024), and two book chapters with the KU Leuven University Press (2024) and TU Delft (2025).  

Hannah Knoop is an architect, researcher, and PhD candidate currently based in Berlin. She holds a diploma in architecture from TU Munich/ ETSA Madrid and a MAS in architecture theory from the Institute gta ETH Zurich. Since 2019, she is a research associate for architectural theory at KIT Karlsruhe, where she is also pursuing her PhD under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Georg Vrachliotis (TU Delft), working title: “The Aporias of Architecture: Human Rights’ Standardization by Design” (since 2020).
Her research interest lies in political and social aspects of architecture, focusing on global governance and human rights’ standardization. Her work has been published in academic journals such as OASE and Dimensions, she has presented at international conferences including AHRA and ISPA, and her teaching courses are regularly evaluated with top results. Prior to joining KIT, Hannah worked as a research assistant at ETH Zurich and TU Kaiserslautern, and as an architect in various German and Swiss architecture offices, including studioeuropa in Munich/Vienna with whom she also won first prize for Schinkel's Bauakademie, Berlin. With her diverse background and experience, she wants to bring new perspectives to research, teaching and theory.

hannah.knoop∂kit.edu

 

• Knoop, Hannah. „On Qualitative Research. Architects as Public Intellectuals - How far beyond can we go?". in: Dimensions, issue 1, p. 111-118. (Spring 2021)
• Knoop, Hannah. „Beyond a game of Tetris. Thoughts on Labour, Work and Action in Architecture“. in: OASE 106. Journal for Architctural Knowledge, p. 97-103. (Summer 2021)
• Knoop, Hannah. „Hans Bernoulli: So wird Warschau wieder aufgebaut (1947)“. in: Städtebau als politische Kultur. Der Architekt und Theoretiker Hans Bernoulli (eds. Sylvia Claus, Lukas Zurfluhr), p. 146-151. (2019)
• Knoop, Hannah. „Die Architektur in der ,Vita activa'. Kenneth Framptons ,The Status of Man and the Status of his Objects' als Rezeption von Hannah Arendts Vita activa“. MAS Thesis, ETH gta Zürich. (2016)

• 11/2022 “Architektur und die Standardisierung der Menschenrechte”. Forschungsdrang. A SF Karlsruhe
• 09/2021 “The Aporias of Architecture – Human Rights and its Representation in Architecture”. BauHow5, Approaching Research Practise in Architecture. TU Delft, UCL, Chalmers, TU Munich, ETH Zurich. TU Munich
• 07/2021 “Public Hurts in Times of Populism” ISPA 5, Public Space: The Real and the Ideal Presentation + moderation of panel. Monte Verità, Switzerland
• 07/2021 7. Forum Architekturwissenschaft Moderation of discussion by Elke Krasny and Paula-Irene Villa Braslavsky. Figurationen von Gender im zeitgenössischen Architekturdiskurs     
• 03/2021 “Supranational Architectures or: The Aporias of Architecture”, Doc Talks / ETH Zurich
• 11/2019 “An Architectural Reading of The Human Condition” AHRA 16 Panel: Around the Table. Hannah Arendt, Architecture & Collective Life. Dundee, Scotland
• 07/2019 “Architects as Public Intellectuals. How far beyond can we go?” RPA, Research Perspectives in Architecture. Conference. TU Munich
• 05/2019 “Raum und Welt. Hannah Arendt architektonisch gelesen” Werkbund: Wahr Gut Schön. Akademie Tutzing. Munich
• 04/2018 “Research Process as Genesis. A subjective Report in Reference to Hannah Arendt”. DARA 8. Symposium and PhD Peer Review. Hannover
• 08/2012 “The Architecture in the Making. Skill Centre Nairobi.” Alvar Aalto Symposium 12. Crafted. Jyväskylä, Finland

Maximilian Kelle is an educator, researcher and PhD candidate currently based in Frankfurt am Main. His interests are at the intersection of architectural design and research concerning affordable housing and innovative communal ways of living. Educated at RWTH Aachen and TU Darmstadt, he received his Master of Science degree in 2019. Since 2020, he has been working as a research assistant at the Chair of Design and Housing at TU Darmstadt.
Previously, he worked on various architectural projects for Holger Meyer architecture and Wandel Lorch Götze Wach architects and as a teaching assistant at the Chair for Urban Design with Professor Dr. Nina Gribat at TU Darmstadt. At the chair for Urban Design he co-published papers on the squatter movement in Frankfurt as well as the change in university design based on the example of the Johann Wolfgang von Goethe University.
Currently he is researching the development processes and impact on the residents of collective housing projects under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Anna-Maria Meister (KIT) as PhD candidate at the TU Darmstadt.