Prof. Dr. Anna-Maria Meister

Professor

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 MagazineVolume, 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

Publications (selection)
  • 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).
Lectures and Presentations (selection since 2019)
  • "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.
Exhibitions (selection)
  • "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.

Dr. Tom Wilkinson

Research Associate

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

Publications (selection)
  • 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).
Lectures and Presentations
  • ‘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.

Hannah Knoop

Research Associate, PhD Candidate
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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

 

Publikcations (selection)
  • 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)
Lectures and Presentations
  • 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

Sina Brückner-Amin

Research Associate

Sina Brückner-Amin is an architectural historian, media scholar and curator. Her research focuses on the intersections of space and knowledge production through (non-architectural) media, institutions and forms of government. In 2024 she received her doctorate at KIT with the thesis "From Farms to the 'New Frontier': The Planning of UC Irvine's Educational Environment, 1932-1965." As a postdoctoral researcher in the AT team, Sina works on science communication formats and strategies for the saai archive. From 2020-2023 she was a doctoral student at the Excellence Cluster "Architectures of Order. 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, sub\urban, die architekt, Kunstchronik and Passe-Avant, among others.

brueckner-amin∂kit.edu

 

S.E. Eisterer

Humboldt Fellow

S.E. Eisterer is an Assistant Professor for Architectural History and Theory at the School of Architecture at Princeton University. In the year 2022 she is also the Pearl Resnick Fellow at the Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and a Senior Fellow with the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. Before joining Princeton University, she was a faculty member at Boston University and the Stuart Weitzman School of Design at the University of Pennsylvania, where she served as Executive Board member for the program in Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies.

Eisterer’s research focuses on spatial histories of dissidence, feminist, queer, and trans theory, as well as the labor of social and ecological movements. Currently, she is working on two forthcoming book projects: the interdisciplinary history and translation project Memories of the Resistance: Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky and the Architecture of Collective Dissidence, 1918–1989 and the edited volume Living Room: Architecture, Gender, Theory, which illuminates methods and theories in writing about feminist and LGBTQIA+ spaces in architecture. Her writing has appeared in academic journals, books, and translations, among them Architectural Histories, Architecture Beyond Europe, Ediciones ARQ, Platform, and Log. With Erin Sassin, S.E. is the co-editor States of Emergency: Architecture, Urbanism, and the First World War (Leuven University Press/Cornell University Press, 2022). In 2020 she gave the Detlef Mertins Memorial Lecture on the History of Modernity at Columbia University, which honors promising research by an Assistant Professor.

Maximilian Kelle

PhD Candidate

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.
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urrently 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.

Olivia Larsen

Student Assistant

Olivia Larsen has been an architecture student at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology since 2019. She has been studying in the master's program since 2022 and supports us with architectural theory as a student assistant. As part of a classical architecture education, Olivia Larsen is particularly interested in architectural theory and communication topics.

ueqvh∂student.kit.edu

Isabel Steiger Salvador

Student Assistant

Since 2023 Isabel Steiger Salvador supports us with architectural theory as a student assistant. She has been an architecture student at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology since 2016. Within the framework of a classical architectural education, Isabel Steiger Salvador is particularly interested in architectural theory and feminist topics.

isabel.salvador∂student.kit.edu

Former Professors

Ir. Bart Lootsma (2022-2023)

Dr. Nathalie Bredella (2021-2022)

Rixt Hoekstra (2021-2022) Guest researcher

Oliver Elser (2020)

Prof. Dr. Georg Vrachliotis was Dean of the Faculty of Architecture (2016-2019), Professor of Architectural Theory, and Director of the saai | Archive for Architecture and Construction (2014-2020). In 2020 he was appointed full professor of architectural theory and digital culture at TU Delft.

Prof. Dr. Werner Sewing (2008–2011) was the first professor to hold the chair of architectural theory at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology.
He died at the age of 60. His library was acquired for the KIT Faculty Library of Architecture.

 

Former Employees

Eleni Zaparta
Dennis Pohl 
Claudia Iordache
Bernita Le Gerrette 
Manuela Gantner
Christian Platz
Lama Alkadi
Silvi Koçiu
Sofija Bozic
Johanna Lorch
Niclas Schlötke
Diana Maier
Fotios Kontogiannopoulos
Lukas Bessai
Florian Dreher
Daniel Fischer
Daniel Grenz
Lucas Longoni
Annelen Schmidt
Meike Weber