Current work fields and projects

The current research at the chair can be assigned to four larger fields of work. In addition to basic research on ancient and medieval building and construction history, the current focus is primarily on reconstruction and post-war modernism in Bavaria. Within the context of a network on Jewish cultural heritage, various project approaches, workshops and conferences are in preparation, which deal specifically with Jewish architecture as a cross-sectional field of the aforementioned topics. The basis for various project approaches is the TUM network "REUSED", which brings together a wide range of competencies, especially from the fields of building sciences and preservation of historical monuments.

 

Reconstruction and Postwar Modernism

The field of work deals with the foundations and effects of the reconstruction of German cities after the Second World War. In this context, (urban) repairs and replacement buildings are considered on different scales, but also (sometimes radical) concepts of the structural transformation of entire cities in the postwar decades and their consequences. Currently, several (further) projects are in preparation.

 

Middle Ages and early modern times

Various projects, some of which have already been running for an extended period of time, deal with constructions of the Middle Ages and the early modern period. The focus is in particular on sacral buildings as the most sophisticated and guiding architectural genres of this period. A broad spectrum of individual investigations leads to a condensed knowledge of building and construction in medieval and early modern eras.

Ancient building history and reception of antiquity

The cooperation with engineering and civil engineering at TUM opens up new options especially in the field of basic research on building history/building theory. Especially the research field of ancient building history, which has almost disappeared at technical universities and is increasingly dominated by universities in the Anglo-American region, can benefit from the constellation of subjects at the TU Munich: The traditional archaeological approach via object-related or phenomenological research questions has reached limits of knowledge, especially in areas of ancient building theory and model formation, which can only be overcome with the help of transdisciplinary, increasingly construction-analytical approaches.

Until the beginning of the 20th century, the basic forms of construction, as well as many other disciplines of art, were back-anchored in ancient epochs, and even modernism is based on an intensive examination of the principles of ancient architecture: its protagonists by no means directed the critical discourse against the architects of the Parthenon and the Pantheon, but against their decreasingly differentiated reception at the end of the 19th century. The research focus therefore also aims at a more differentiated view of "historicizing" concepts of modern architecture.

Terracina und sein Heiligtum in hellenistischer Zeit

Projektpartner im DFG Projekt des Instituts für Klassische Archäologie, LMU