Architecture Theory
The processes that shape large-scale built environments require critical analysis. Read through their social impact, bureaucratic and (proto-)digital design processes are understood in a multi-layered and intersectional way. This includes the critical examination of technophilic rhetoric of efficiency, rationalization, precision or function as well as the widening of actor circles or the consideration of consequences of architectural action. The urgent questions of our discipline concerning sustainability (also beyond technicist belief in progress) or diversity (as a real change of perspective, scientifically as well as in practice) are in the foreground. The questions that concern us are therefore the following: who produces which architectures with what (social, political or aesthetic) intention? At whose expense are they produced? Who and what is included or excluded? Which societal images are constructed, and what architectures are projected by societies? In teaching and research, we deepen selected questions methodologically and thematically, always closely linked to reading and writing practices through iterative text production and by approaching multi-perspective bibliographies and formats. Architectures, or better, spatial practices, shape environments in the midst of communities and societies. The responsibility this entails makes informed critical historical and theoretical engagement urgent.
Prof. Dr. Anna-Maria Meister, 2023
There are currently about 882,000 square meters of empty office space in Hamburg. If this space were converted to the average living space per person (38.7 square meters), it could create housing for around 22,800 people. This simple idea was the starting point for the Pop-up Wohnen project, which addresses the paradox that large areas of office space remain unused while the shortage of affordable housing worsens.
Together with the collective vonwegenleer and students from HCU Hamburg, substitute professor Sabine Hansmann established a real-world laboratory right in the heart of Hamburg last year. As part of the accompanying design course, photographs by Arman Jeddi and housing ethnographies by the participating students who temporarily inhabited the empty office space were created. This feature describes the implementation of the project and highlights the paradoxical juxtaposition of housing shortages and empty office space.
Guest editors: Leona Erdmann, Juli Sottorf, Emma Stiehle (vonwegenleer), V.-Prof. Dr.-Ing. Sabine Hansmann (Professorship Architecture Theory, KIT Karlsruhe)
Following a substitute professorship at HafenCity University Hamburg, Sabine Hansmann will now serve as a substitute professor of architectural theory at KIT Karlsruhe beginning in the summer semester of 2026. She is an architectural theorist whose teaching and research focus on architectural anthropology, theories of space, actor-network theory (ANT), and feminist science and technology studies (STS). She understands architecture as a socio-material practice and focuses on the networks and material processes through which spaces emerge, are shaped, and are transformed. Her methods include architectural ethnography and experimental design research approaches such as real-world laboratories—most recently with a pop-up housing project in downtown Hamburg in collaboration with the collective vonwegenleer.
A new article by Dr Tom Wilkinson was published in Apollo Magazine on 1 April. It examines the extension to the MASP, designed by Metro Arquitetos Associados in São Paulo, and explores what significance this holds for the museum.
"Museum extensions are a seemingly unstoppable phenomenon. In London, the National Gallery is planning a whole new wing, architects to be determined. MoMA is the undisputed global leader in this field, having now grown to occupy nearly an entire city block. Whether this expansionary zeal can be justified by the quality of the works they are currently unable to display remains to be seen. The new extension to the São Paulo Museum of Art (MASP) is part of this tendency but also departs from it in some important ways..."
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An intimate preview evening to begin the March Disabled Legacies: Beyond Access and Inclusion gathering. Join for a walkthrough of a Paul Mellon Centre (PMC) display, "Misfits: Disability as Method Through Objects" curated by Virginia Marano. Virginia will be available to answer questions and talk about the objects and ideas of the exhibition. This will be followed by an informal talk by the artist Tony Heaton, and will end the evening with a reception.
Misfits features artworks by Sarah Biffin, Lorenza Böttner, Jesse Darling, Tony Heaton, Martha Ann Honeywell, Tom Olin, Donald Rodney, Michael Stahlberg, and Kurt Weston. The display presents painting, sculpture, photography, film and archival material spanning from the early nineteenth century to the present day. This project was curated by Virginia Marano (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology) as part of the spring edition of "What Is Research Now?".
If you have any questions about access or event details, please email events@paul-mellon-centre.ac.uk
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The public lectures, part of a workshop organised by the Architecture-Theory-History Department at the RPTU University Kaiserslautern-Landau, interrogate colonial power relations, hegemonic structures, and inequalities and exclusions in knowledge systems and educational practices and institutions.
Prof. Dr. Anna-Maria Meister is going to talk about "Institutionality and/or Radicality" from 16:45 to 17:30 at the event.
Date: Thursday, 12.03.2026, 13:00–20:00
Place: Aedes, Christinenstr. 18–19, 10119 Berlin
Registration for the public: www.eventbrite.de
The event will take place in english. Admission is free.
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From March 2 to 4, 2026, researchers will meet at the saai in Karlsruhe to examine how slow and algorithmic metadata shape archival knowledge systems. The workshop explores how translation practices reinforce or challenge bias—and what this means for the future of “intelligent” archives.
Join us: Data Talk - Digital Archives: Loss, Grievances and Temporalities
With
Prof. Dr. Anna-Maria Meister, Professor for architectural theory and co-director of the saai archive at KIT Karlsruhe, director of the Lise Meitner Research Group Coded Objects at the Kunsthistorisches Institute in Florenz (KHI)
Dr. Teresa Fankhänel, curator at the German Architecture Museum, Frankfurt am Main, editor-in-chief of the Architectural Exhibition Review
February 26, 6 pm
Architekturmuseum der TUM, Pinakothek der Moderne
Part of City in the Cloud - Data on the Ground.
Concept & realization: Damjan Kokalevski, Sarolta Szatmári
To register for the Data Talk, please send an email to anmeldung@architekturmuseum.de. A limited number of places are available.
Misfits, curated by Virginia Marano (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology) as part of the spring edition of What Is Research Now?, brings together painting, sculpture, photography, film, and archival material from the early nineteenth century to the present, with works by Sarah Biffin, Lorenza Böttner, Jesse Darling, Tony Heaton, Martha Ann Honeywell, Tom Olin, Donald Rodney, Michael Stahlberg, and Kurt Weston.
The evening opens with an intimate preview to launch the Disabled Legacies: Beyond Access and Inclusion gathering, featuring a guided walkthrough of the Paul Mellon Centre display Misfits: Disability as Method Through Objects, curated by Virginia Marano, who will be available to discuss the exhibition and answer questions. This is followed by an informal talk by artist Keith Piper on the life and work of Donald Rodney, whose works appear in the display. The event concludes with a reception.
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Tinatin Gurgenidze is an architect, curator and researcher based in Berlin. She is co-founder and curator of the Tbilisi Architecture Biennial. Her research focuses on post-socialist mass housing and everyday urban practices. Tinatin was co-curator of the Georgian Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale and a jury member for the EUmies Awards. She currently teaches architectural theory at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and publishes internationally on topics related to architecture, with a particular focus on the post-socialist urban context.
We want to make architectural theory more tangible by exhibiting it, discussing and presenting it in Karlsruhe's urban space! We invite you to the Architekturschaufenster for "AT goes A SF" to discuss insights, questions and ideas from our courses with students and guests.
6.02.26. 17:00-20:00
Architekturschaufenster Karlsruhe, Waldstraße 8, 76131 Karlsruhe
[in person]
Virginia Marano is an art historian and curator whose work critically engages contemporary art through disability studies and the histories of architecture and design. She is currently a Junior Research Fellow in the Young Investigator Group Preparation Program (YIG Prep Pro) at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and an associate scholar in the Lise Meitner Group “Coded Objects,” led by Anna-Maria Meister at the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz – Max-Planck-Institut.
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