New professor for Architectural Theory and Architectural Design HTC from 1.10.: Lutz Robbers

Lutz Robbers is an architectural theorist and historian. He studied at Yale University, earned his Ph.D. from Princeton University, served as a research fellow at the International College for Cultural Technology Research and Media Philosophy (IKKM) at the Bauhaus University Weimar, and taught at RWTH Aachen University, the Cities Program at the London School of Economics (LSE) and in the Paris Program at Columbia University. Lutz was an invited guest professor at Tel Aviv University’s School of Architecture. Most recently, he helped establish the innovative Urban Design program at Jade University in Oldenburg. He gained curatorial experience at the Cité de l’architecture in Paris. He served as editor and managing editor of the journal Candide – Journal for Architectural Knowledge. His profile is decidedly interdisciplinary and international. From the perspective of a historically grounded theory of architecture, his teaching and research combine subjects and methods from the design disciplines with approaches from media philosophy, cultural technology research, and Science and Technology Studies.

In his research, he focuses primarily on the medial conditions of architectural knowledge. Central to his research is “how,” “with what,” and “under what conditions” we perceive, analyze, communicate, understand and ultimately produce what we consider as architecture. By viewing architectures less as objects and more as media, the focus shifts to the various tools that architects and urban planners use to design and plan—and that historians and theorists also use to produce and legitimize architectural knowledge. In particular, he explores the agency of animated images in architectural processes and discourses. In addition, his research addresses questions of how design disciplines such as architecture and urban planning can be “ecologized” in an era of climate crises, limited resources, and sustainability.

Innovation in teaching theory is one of Lutz’s central interests. He teaches theory in ways that make it ‘operative’ for students to critically question and innovate the ways they practice architecture. Theory should help students to understand and design architecture as an active medium for imagining, designing, and building the built environment. Then theory can become a Fröhliche Wissenschaft that empowers students to embrace the inherent contingency, openness, and diversity of our world. Amidst the challenging multi-crisis conditions we live in, theory helps in critically conducting an inventory of its own (unsustainable) foundations. Then it can assist students to unearth potentials for new critical and creative design agencies for imagining desirable futures.