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Theories of Teaching Architectural History

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Lecture series
Art and Architecture
Schillerplatz 3
1010 Vienna
Room 211a

Lectures at 19 h each
Language: English

IKA Lecture Series 2026/2027, curated by Angelika Schnell.

The teaching of architectural history has changed in recent years and decades. Admittedly, a more diverse approach to architectural history does not merely involve, for example, incorporating more female or non-European perspectives and projects; it must also break new ground in terms of epistemology. Criticism has been levelled at the humanist thinking underpinning European methodology, in which ‘the role of the subject vis-à-vis the object has been that of an originating agent of meaning, unique, centralised and authoritative’,[1] and which therefore favours periodisation, monographs, and analyses of form and style. But what does methodologically nuanced, pluralistic research in architectural history look like? How does it work in practice? Can only contemporary theories such as gender, queer, and de- and postcolonial studies grasp their approaches? What does the epistemology of modernity nevertheless achieve? Or is the concept of academic research changing – and with it the entire epistemic system upon which architectural history also rests? Do AI models help or hinder this reorientation? And how can these considerations be incorporated into teaching in concrete terms? 

These and other questions are to be raised – and perhaps also answered – in the Lecture Series for the 2026/2027 academic year at the Institute of Art and Architecture at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. Architectural historians from various backgrounds who are engaged with these questions will be invited to present and discuss their research approaches from this perspective.

27.10.2026 Prof. Dr. Zeynep Kuban
Technical University Istanbul, Faculty of Architecture
„Beyond the Lecture: Alternative Approaches to Teaching Architectural History“

30.11.2026 Dr. Yuri Primarosa
Gallerie Nazionali di Arte Antica, Rome
“A Female Polymath in Baroque Rome: Plautilla Bricci and the Absent Legacy"

14.12.2026 Prof. Dr. Kathleen James-Chakraborty
University College Dublin, School of Art History
"Expanding Agency: How and Why to Write More Inclusive Histories of Architecture“


[1] K. Michael Hays, Modernism and the Posthumanist Subject. The Architecture of Hannes Meyer and Ludwig Hilberseimer, MIT Press, Cambridge/Mass., 1992, p. 5

  • Beyond the Lecture: Alternative Methods for Teaching the History of Architecture

    A lecture by Prof. Dr. Zeynep Kuban, Technical University Istanbul, Faculty of Architecture. This event takkes place as part of the IKA Lecture Series Winter 2026/27: Theories of Teaching Architectural History, curated by Angelika Schnell.

    Lecture

    Schillerplatz 3
    1010 Vienna
    Room 211a

    Art and Architecture