The University of Luxembourg is a new and rapidly expanding educational and research institution, founded in 2003. In addition to the many new BA and MA courses the University is offering and developing, it has recently decided to initiate an MA in Architecture dealing with European Urbanisation and Globalisation that will start in the fall of 2013. Collaborating with among others the Faculty of Engineering, this Master is situated in the Faculty of Language and Literature, Humanities, Arts and Education and connected to the Research Unit IPSE, Identités, Politiques, Societés, Espace, which is concerned with relevant social issues and developments in a socio-cultural, historical, political, spatial and linguistic perspective. Its research activities do not focus exclusively on Luxembourg but take a broader view to include the level of the Greater Region and Europe at large.
Faculté des Lettres, des Sciences humaines, des Arts et des Sciences de l’Éducation - IPSE Fondation de l’Architecture et de l’Ingénierie Groupe de travail pour le Master in Architecture
Dr. Sonja Beeck studied architecture at the RWTH Aachen. After 8 years of practice in architectural offices in Cologne and London, she went to New York, Las Vegas and Walt Disney Corp. to research for her PHD: „Theming _a method for semantic programming of space”, which she finished in 2003 at the University of Karlsruhe and at the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation. As a member of the academic staff of the Bauhaus from 2000 to 2010, she worked there for the long term laboratory IBA STADTUMBAU 2010 and was responsible for the project development and managed many projects inventing new spatial development strategies for regions with shrinking population. Besides she has been teaching „Stadt und Landschaft“ at the University of Innsbruck from 2006 to 2008. After the final exhibition of IBA STADTUMBAU 2010, Sonja Beeck is now teaching “Urban development and management in the international context” at the University of Kassel und works as a consultant for the local authorities in Berlin to prepare new IBA for Berlin 2020.
Matthias Böttger studied architecture and urban planning. His academic career started at the Bauhaus Foundation Dessau, continued at University of Stuttgart and from 2007 - 2011 he tought "Art + Architecture" at the ETH Zürich. 2007/2008 he was Visiting Professor for Art and Public Space at the Academy of Fine Arts in Nuremburg. In 2008 he was commissioner and curator for the German contribution “Updating Germany—Projects for a Better Future” to the 11th International Architecture Exhibition in Venice. 2007-2009 he was a fellow at the Akademie Schloss Solitude in Stuttgart. 2010 he ran the exhibition space aut - Architektur und Tirol - in Innsbruck and curated the series aut.raumproduktion. Since July 2011 he is curator and artistic director of DAZ - Deutsches Architektur Zentrum - in Berlin. His Berlin-based think-tank “raumtaktik — office from a better future — deals with spatial intelligence and intervention in the present and the future.
Arno Brandlhuber is the founder of brandlhuber+ Berlin. He holds the chair of architecture and urban research at the Academy of Fine Arts, Nuremberg and is directing the nomadic masters program a42.org. He is co-founder of the public seminar Akademie c/o, currently researching on the spatial production of the Berlin Republic.
Marianne Brausch studied architecture, specialization in urbanisme, ISA St-Luc Bruxelles, Brussels (1974-1979). Mémoire about the relations between the press and architecture. 1979-1981 : Master in history of architecture, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris
Michele Brunello, architect, lives between Milan and Venice where he is coursing his Ph.D. at the IUAV university and collaborating as associate professor. He is partner in Stefano Boeri Architetti. After having coordinated the project in La Maddalena and Milan 2015 Expo Masterplan, he is now developing the city of innovation "Skolkovo" in Moscow. He is also founder of the architectural studio DONTSTOP.
Marjan Colletti is co-founder of the London-based architecture studio marcosandmarjan, which combines experimental practice, research, theory and teaching. The studio is currently working on a 160.000m2 high-rise building in Taipei Taiwan. He is professor at the insititute for experimental architecture.Hochbau at Innsbruck university and a senior lecturer (associate professor) at the Bartlett School of Architecture UCL in London, where he runs MArch Unit 20, MArch GAD cluster 2 and supervises MPhil/PhD by design students. He has previously been guest professor at various European, US and Asian institutions, i.e TU Vienna, UCLA Los Angeles, UT Arlington Texas, Innsbruck University, RCA etc. He is the guest-editor of AD Architectural Design Exuberance: New Virtuosity in Contemporary Architecture (Wiley), co-editor of Research Projects 2009 (Bartlett UCL), co-author of marcosandmarjan: Interfaces/Intrafaces (SpringerWienNewYork), and author of 2&1/2D Twoandahalf Dimensionality (Bucher Hohenems), and is currently working on Digital Poetics (Ashgate Publishing). He has also exhibited in approx. 60 exhibition worldwide, and is regularly invited as guest critic and lecturer internationally.
Aglaee Degros is cofounder of Artgineering (2001), an office for research and design at the border between urban planning and infrastructure. In 2010 she was visiting professor of Urban Culture and Public Space at the Vienna University of Technology. She has also been visiting lecturer at TU Delft, Academy of Architecture Rotterdam, Amsterdam and Arnhem, as well as at the UCL and ULB in Brussels.
Murray Fraser is Professor of Architecture and Global Culture at the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London, where he currently acts as the Director of Research.
Vicente Guallart has since July 2011 been Barcelona City Council’s Chief Architect and Director of Urban Habitat, with responsibility for Urbanism, Environment, Infrastructure and ICT. In recent years his firm, Guallart Architects, has carried out numerous architectural projects in which environment issues converge with information technologies, notably for the ports of Fugee and Keelung in Taiwan, the Sociopolis neighbourhood in Valencia and the Sharing Blocks in Gandia. He has been director of the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (IAAC) since its founding in 2001 and ran the IAAC Media House project (in conjunction with the CBA at MIT), which won the 2002 Ciutat de Barcelona prize. In 2010 he co-directed the Fab Lab House project, winner of the Solar Decathlon Europe Audience Award. In 1992 he won a FAD award for a private house in the historic centre of Barcelona. He has been invited on three occasions to show in the official Spanish Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale, with the Barcelona Metapolis, Denia Artificial Mountain and Hyperhabitat projects. In 2006 he was selected for the MOMA’s On Site exhibition in New York. He has lectured at a number of universities worldwide, including MIT, Columbia, Princeton and Harvard GSD. He is co-author of several books, such as the Metapolis Dictionary of Advanced Architecture, and the author of Geologics.
Manuel Herz is a practicing architect based in Basel, his most recent project being the Synagogue and Community Center in Mainz. He is the head of research and teaching at ETH Studio Basel: Contemporary City Institute and teaches at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design. After having finished his studies at the Architectural Association in London, he taught at the Bartlett School of Architecture and KTH Stockholm. Manuel has published extensively on issues of diasporas and urbanism. Currently, he is researching on the topic of planning strategies of refugee camps and the dilemma of humanitarian action.
Markus Hesse is Professor of urban studies at the University of Luxembourg, Faculty of Humanities, with the Geography and Spatial Planning research centre.
Hans Ibelings is trained as an architectural historian. He was the editor of A10 new European architecture, which he founded together with graphic designer Arjan Groot in 2004. He has just started The Architecture Observer a multiform tool for architectural criticism. Last year he published European architecture since 1890 (SUN Amsterdam 2011)/Europäische Architektur seit 1890 (Jovis Berlin 2011).
Lars Lerup is the Harry K. and Albert K. Smith Professor of Architecture and the Dean Emeritus at Rice School of Architecture, Houston Texas and Professor Emeritus of University of California at Berkeley. He was awarded Doctor honoris causa in technology by Lund University, Sweden in 2001. Born in Sweden he holds degrees in engineering (Sweden), architecture (UC Berkeley) and urban design (GSD, Harvard). Lerup has written several books: Villa Prima Facie 1976, Building the Unfinished 1977 (also published in German), Planned Assaults 1987 (also published in Chinese), After the City 2000, and some fifty essays in international magazines. Lerup’s art and design work includes drawings, paintings, architectural projects and competitions for new towns (Taipei, Taiwan), buildings, houses (California, Texas and Switzerland) and furniture. His work has been exhibited in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Houston, Paris, Berlin, Rome, Zurich, Moscow and Stockholm. His most recent book One Million Acres and No Zoning was published in 2010. Lerup was elected Swedish American by Vasa Orden in 2004. He was the Harold W. Brunner Rome Prize Fellow at the American Academy in Rome 2009-10.
Bart Lootsma is a historian, critic and curator in the fields of architecture, design and the visual arts. He is a Professor for Architectural Theory at the Leopold-Franzens University in Innsbruck and Guest Professor for Architecture, European Urbanity and Globalization at the University of Luxemburg. Before, he was Head of Scientific Research at the ETH Zürich, Studio Basel, and he was a Visiting Professor at the Academy of Visual Arts in Vienna; at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Nürnberg; at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna and at the Berlage Institute in Rotterdam. He held numerous seminars and lectured at different academies for architecture and art in the Netherlands.
Winy Maas is a Dutch architect, landscape architect, professor and urbanist. In 1991 together with Jacob van Rijs and Nathalie de Vries he set up MVRDV. He completed his studies at the RHSTL Boskoop, graduating as a "landscape architect", and in 1990 he got his degree from the Delft University of Technology. He currently is visiting professor of architectural design at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and is professor in architecture and urban design at the faculty of architecture, Delft University of Technology. Before this he was professor at among others Berlage Institute, Ohio State and Yale University.
Markus Miessen is an architect, researcher and writer. In 2002, he set up Studio Miessen, a collaborative agency for spatial practice and cultural inquiry, and in 2007, he co-founded the London- and Berlin-based architectural practice nOffice. In various collaborations, Miessen has published, amongst other titles: Waking Up From the Nightmare of Participation (Expodium, 2011), The Nightmare of Participation (Sternberg Press, 2010), Institution Building: Artists, Curators, Architects in the Struggle for Institutional Space (Sternberg Press, 2009), East Coast Europe (Sternberg Press, 2008), The Violence of Participation (Sternberg Press, 2007), With/Without: Spatial Products, Practices, and Politics in the Middle East (Bidoun, 2007), Did Someone Say Participate? An Atlas of Spatial Practice (MIT Press, 2006), and Spaces of Uncertainty (Müller+Busmann, 2002). His work has been published and exhibited widely, including at the Lyon, Venice, Performa (NY), Manifesta (Murcia), Gwangju, and Shenzhen Biennials. In 2008, he founded the Winter School Middle East (Dubai & Kuwait). Miessen has held academic positions at the Architectural Association, London (2004–08), the Berlage Institute, Rotterdam (2009–10), the Hochschule für Gestaltung, Karlsruhe (2010-12), Haute Ecole d'Art et de Design, Geneva (2010-12). He is now a professor for Critical Spatial Practice at the Städelschule in Frankfurt.
Carole Schmit graduated at La Cambre architecture in Brussels in 1997 and received a Post-Graduate Master’s degree at the Berlage Institute in Amsterdam in 2000. She collaborated with Multiplicity Milan from 2000 – 2002 (project USE, Bordeaux 2000-2001 and Chinese connection, Australia 2001-2002) and with Maurice Nio Rotterdam from 2000 – 2002 (edition of book Unseen I slipped away published in 2004 by 010, Rotterdam). She co-founded in 2001 YEA Young European Architects and was president from 2001-2004. In 2002, Carole Schmit received in Dessau the International Bauhaus Award (3d price) for her research entitled ReKoGeB inBorderland. She was teaching as invited professor at La Cambre architecture Brussels and Saint-Luc Liège (2002-2004) and currently teaches at the University in Luxembourg (Formation Continue en Aménagement du Territoire). She currently collaborates with Bart Lootsma in setting up the Master program for architecture (March) at the University in Luxembourg (2007-…). Carole Schmit created Polaris Architects together with François Thiry as a collective (Rotterdam 2000-2001 and Brussels 2002-2004). In 2005 the office settled officially in Luxembourg. Carole Schmit is author of various exhibitions and articles in architecture and art magazines.
Christian Schulz is Professor of European Sustainable Spatial Development and Analysis at the University of Luxembourg and since 2007 Head of its interdisciplinary Research Unit IPSE (Identités. Politiques, Sociétés, Espaces).
Brett is the Director of the Architectural Association School of Architecture, including the AA Public Programme and AA Publications. The Architectural Association is the UK’s oldest and only private school of architecture, which has for decades been recognized as an influential worldwide leader in architectural education. AA graduates are the recipients of the world’s leading prizes and awards in architecture, including three of the past nine Pritzker Prizes, the RIBA Gold Medal & Stirling Awards, AIA and other design awards. AA graduates have created many of the iconic buildings and led the most important schools of our time. The AA School is the world’s most international school of architecture, with 90% of the school’s 650 full-time London students originating from sixty or more overseas countries each year. In 2008 Brett founded the AA Visiting School, an international programme of global design workshops that have enrolled more than a thousand visiting students in Dubai; Turin; Istanbul, Madrid, Berlin and elsewhere in Europe; in Santiago, Chile; Bangalore, India; Singapore; Shanghai; Beijing; San Francisco; Dae Jon, Korea; Tel Aviv; Madrid; San Paolo; Tokyo; Tehran; and other cities.
Dietmar Steiner studied architecture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. Until 1989 he held a teaching post in architecture history and theory at the Hochschule für angewandte Kunst in Vienna. Dietmar Steiner has been director of the Architekturzentrum Wien since 1993. In 2002 he curated the Austrian contribution to the Architecture Biennial in Venice in his capacity as Commissioner.
Kjetil Trædal Thorsen is a Norwegian architect. In 1987, he co-founded the Snøhetta i.s. company, and has been active in many aspects of the company’s projects.
Prof. Dr. Wouter Vanstiphout (Heist op den Berg/Belgium 1967) is an architectural historian, founding partner of Crimson Architectural Historians in Rotterdam and Professor of Design & Politics at the Faculty of Architecture of Delft Technical University in the Netherlands. As a practitioner he has directed the renewal of the Dutch Industrial Satellite Town of Rotterdam Hoogvliet and advises municipalities, the national government, housing corporations and project developers on matters relating to urban renewal, cultural heritage and spatial and urban politics. He has written extensively about post war urbanism, urban renewal policies and projects and recently has lectures and written extensively on the relationship between urban riots and urban planning. He is a regular columnist at the British Architecture weekly Building Design and this spring will publish a book in the Design & Politics series at 010 Publishers, Design and Politics #6, Four World Cities Face Off. With his chair Wouter Vanstiphout is curating an exhibition as part of the 5th International Architecture Biennale of Rotterdam, called Design As Politics.
Roemer van Toorn is Theory and Media Professor at the Umeå School of Architectur, Sweden. From 1993 till 2010 he has been in charge of the History and Theory program and was Head of publications at the Berlage Institute. He has been a researcher and educator at the Delft School of Design run by Arie Graafland at University of Technology Delft, while at the same time pursuing a career as an international lecturer. He has been the editor of several issues of the annual publication Architecture in the Netherlands, as well as an advisor of the magazine Archis (Volume), Hunch, Domus and Abitare. As author and photographer he also contributes to many other publications. After graduating from the University of Technology Delft, Roemer van Toorn published The Invisible in Architecture (1994), in collaboration with Ole Bouman; in this acclaimed encyclopedic manifest he dissects the varied range of cultural, economic, political and philosophic outlook within the contemporary architectural discourse with the aim of outlining the different positions and issues of today's architecture. His photography work has been exhibited in Winnipeg, Los Angeles and was part of the exhibition Cities on the Move curated by Hou Hanru and Hans-Ulrich Obrist. In October 2004 his photos on the Society of The And have been exhibited at Archilab The Naked City curated by Bart Lootsma. Currently he is working on a publication entitled From Fresh Conservatism to Radical Democracy. Aesthetics as Form of Politics. Forthcoming is his English photobook the Society of The And (Nai publishers).
Mirko Zardini, an architect, is the Director and Chief Curator of the Canadian Centre for Architecture since 2005. His research engages the transformation of contemporary architecture by questioning and relooking at the assumptions on which architects operate today. Imperfect Health: The Medicalization of Architecture (2011), his latest exhibition, exposes the excessive optimism in the therapeutic role of architecture.
