KRITIK DES
KRITI­SCHEN REGIONALISMUS

DIE UNHEIM­LICHE GESCHICHTE DES EINFAMILIEN­HAUSES (IN GERMAN)

LEC­TURE AS PART OF THE SEM­INAR REGIONA­L*ISMEN: THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY by VIS­IT­ING PRO­FESSOR DR. ELENA MARKUS

History and The­ory of Archi­tec­ture, UNI­VER­SITY KASSEL
JUNE 19, 2026

The single-family house is the German’s dream home. Des­pite all today’s cri­ti­cism, it still sym­bol­izes region­al­ist archi­tec­ture and a family-friendly life­style in the coun­tryside. Yet its past as a work­ers’ and farm­ers’ house, as well as its history as set­tle­ment archi­tec­ture and bar­racks, remains shrouded in mys­tery. It is time to tell the eerie story of the single-family house. 

Read more

Von der
Weltaus­­stellung zur
Bauaus­­stellung

Eine Architektur­geschichte
großer Ausstel­lungen
1851–1957

Habilitation at the School of Engin­eer­ing and Design at Tech­nical Uni­ver­sity Munich, fun­ded by German Research Found­a­tion (DFG)

Study on the archi­tec­ture, polit­ics and typo­logy of large exhib­i­tions, with twenty case studies that form a gene­a­logy of their own.

Read more

It will be pub­lished in June 2026 by Jovis Ver­lag, Berlin.

ARCHI­­TEC­­TURE
AND MIGRA­­TION

MAS­TER SEM­INAR, WINTER SEMESTER 2025/2026

REGINE HESS, CHAIR OF ARCHITEC­TURE HISTORY AND CURA­TORIAL PRAC­TICE, TU MUNICH

EXHIB­I­TION IN COOPER­ATION WITH HAUS DER DONAU­SCHWABEN, HAAR

In the sem­inar, stu­dents from seven coun­tries explored the top­ics of ver­nacu­lar archi­tec­ture, (forced) migra­tion, and com­munity build­ing. They presen­ted their research ques­tions and find­ings in an exhib­i­tion at the Haus der Donaus­chwaben. This com­munity cen­ter pre­serves and com­mu­nic­ates the history and cul­ture of eth­nic Ger­mans who were expelled from Hun­gary, Yugoslavia, and Romania in 1945. 

In the exhib­i­tion, the stu­dents trace memor­ies pre­served in the archi­tec­ture and build­ing tra­di­tions of the Danube Swa­bian com­munity and Danube Swa­bian Women as cre­at­ors of space, in Islamic burial sites and migrant res­taur­ants in Munich, in cultural cen­ters of the Alevi dia­spora in Ger­many, in the archi­tec­tural heritage of sea­sonal work­ers in Geneva, and in the nomadic build­ing cul­ture of the Sami in Norway.

Read more

LEC­TURE SERIES

REGINE HESS
CON­TESTED HISTORY.
ARCHI­TEC­TURE IN PALESTINE AND ISRAEL (IN GERMAN)

UNI­VER­SITY OF BERN
Octo­ber 27, 2025

Can the archi­tec­tural history of Israel and Palestine con­trib­ute to the under­stand­ing of the Middle East con­flict? As this is a long-last­ing global con­flict, the lec­ture high­lights the history of ter­rit­ory, colo­ni­al­ism, migra­tion and set­tle­ment from the end of the 19th cen­tury to the 1980s. The aim is to gain a bet­ter under­stand­ing and to observe the unknown at first – inso­far as this is pos­sible in a con­flic­ted research environment.

WOHNEN MIT KLASSE

ED. BY AMELIE OCHS AND ROSANNA UMBACH
SUPERVISION BY REGINE HESS

Kritische Berichte.
Journal for Art History
and Cultural Studies, 2/2025

Hous­ing and class are inex­tric­ably linked. The art­icles in this issue ana­lyze this con­nec­tion with a view to images of hous­ing in pho­to­graphy, film, magazines, archi­tec­ture (debates) and on social media and dis­cuss how class rela­tions are made vis­ible and invis­ible in them. The issue is pub­lished in German.

Down­load the issue          Ulmer Ver­ein

THE HERITAGE OF MINORITIES, FRINGE GROUPS AND PEOPLE WITHOUT A LOBBY

ETH ZURICH, CONSTRUC­TION
HERI­TAGE AND PRESERVATION

PRO­JECT MAN­AGER AND ACQUI­SI­TION OF THIRD-­PARTY FUNDS
2022/­2023

The motto of the European Archi­tec­tural Heritage Year 1975 was “A Future for our Past.” 50 years later, in view of the con­sequences of glob­al­isa­tion, diversity, cli­mate change, migra­tion and dis­place­ment, we are faced with the ques­tion of who is meant by “us” at all.
The research and exhib­i­tion pro­ject is based on an idea by Prof. Dr. Silke Langenberg. It asks whose heritage we are talk­ing about, who determ­ines what is import­ant for society’s memory, and what char­ac­ter­ises this soci­ety? Do the objects pro­tec­ted by laws on monu­ments, nature and heritage con­ser­va­tion in the German-speak­ing coun­tries and thus pre­served for the future really rep­res­ent history? Or have we not been talk­ing about his­tor­ies for a long time? What heritage is sig­ni­fic­ant for out­siders and mar­gin­al­ised groups without a lobby, and what meas­ures should be taken to ensure that the heritage of the future really reflects the social devel­op­ments of the past? What does inclu­sion in heritage mean? The exhib­i­tion and pre­par­at­ory research are inten­ded to hon­our the res­ults and achieve­ments of the European Archi­tec­tural Heritage Year 1975, to reflect on the cur­rent situ­ation and to provide impulses for the future devel­op­ment of preservation. Cooper­a­tion part­ners are ICOMOS Ger­many, ICOMOS Aus­tria and the S AM Swiss Museum of Archi­tec­ture. The pro­ject is fun­ded by the Fed­eral Office of Cul­ture (BAK).

Read more

Pro­ject man­age­ment and acquis­i­tion also included the suc­cess­ful applic­a­tion for an inter­na­tional conference to be held on Monte Ver­ità in Ascona from 22 to 24 Octo­ber 2025 and the pub­lic­a­tion A Future for whose Past? A Guide­book, ed. by ICOMOS Suisse/ETH Zurich, Con­struc­tion Heritage and Preservation, Zurich 2025

Find out more about the conference

A Future for whose Past? A Guidebook

DAS ERBE VON
MINDER­HEITEN /
THE HERITAGE OF
MINORITIES

ed. by Regine Hess,
ORKUN KASAP, SILKE LANGENBERG

Kritische Berichte.
Journal for Art History
and Cultural Studies, 1/2024

The issue brings together con­tri­bu­tions from monu­ment preservation, archi­tec­ture and art history on top­ics of labor, gender, race, child­hood, psy­cho­path­o­logy, sub­cul­ture and the right of mar­gin­al­ized groups to the European archi­tec­tural and cultural heritage. The authors are Clara Aroki­asamy OBE, Pres­id­ent of ICOMOS UK (inter­viewed by Regine Hess), Tom Aver­maete, Rune Frand­sen, Kos­tas Tsi­am­baos, Coordin­ator of DOCO­MOMO, Greece.

kb Debate 2024: The rules of the debate
The exist­en­tial crises of recent years – cli­mate change, the covid-19 pan­demic, the latest wars and the rise of polit­ical pop­u­lism – have led to a social debate cul­ture that is increas­ingly emo­tional and ideo­lo­gical. The harden­ing of ideo­lo­gical stand­points and the com­mu­nic­at­ive logic of the new media are accom­pan­ied by a boom in altern­at­ive offers of truth, which are increas­ingly accom­pan­ied by attacks on science and its insti­tu­tions that con­stantly chal­lenge the scientific rules of find­ing truth and solu­tions. The debate topic there­fore aims to ask what strategies the human­it­ies, and spe­cific­ally art history, can offer to counter the erosion of the basic rules of a demo­cratic exchange of opin­ions and the loss of trust in inde­pend­ent science. The debate begins with Wolfgang Ullrich’s con­tri­bu­tion Kunstwelt im Kon­f­likt.

Read more about edi­tion 1/2024          Ulmer Ver­ein

Designed Orders

Lec­ture Series

REGINE HESS (ETH ­ ZUrich)
Oth­er­ing Displayed:
Racial­ized Space­mak­ing of
German Exhib­i­tions

Archi­tec­ture
Con­flict

ed. by Regine Hess,
work­ing group
Archi­tec­ture Conflict

Kritische Berichte.
Journal for Art History
and Cultural Studies, 2/2023

This issue is ded­ic­ated to con­flict in archi­tec­ture. Here, we con­sider plan­ning and build­ing in at its most import­ant – con­flic­tual – stages, where a mul­ti­tude of dif­fer­ent act­ors are involved. Archi­tec­ture and preservation are thus more strongly embed­ded in the polit­ical, social, and his­tor­ical sci­ences. Research­ing con­tro­ver­sies and the pro­duc­tion of dif­fer­ence are guid­ing research prin­ciples. The work­ing group Archi­tec­ture Con­flict is inter­ested in a his­tor­ical, source-crit­ical per­spect­ive on built and unbuilt archi­tec­ture, pub­lic space, infra­struc­tures, as well as those nar­rat­ives, insti­tu­tions and inter­ac­tions doc­u­ment­ing that.
This year’s debate on Queer­ness in Art Sci­ences is con­tin­ued by the con­tri­bu­tion «Queer Spa­tial Prac­tice: The Forum Queer Archive Munich as stor­age of memory and feeling».

Read more about edi­tion 2/2023          Ulmer Ver­ein

Lec­ture by REGINE HESS

May 10, 2023. ­4 – 5:30 p.m.

Depart­ment of Art History,
DEPT. archi­tec­tural history,
Uni­ver­sity of Cologne

Architek­tur,
Kon­struk­tion und
Ausbildungs­tradition

© pk-Odessa Co. @sebastianschels

© Ivan Sterzinger

Racism in
Archi­tec­ture

ed. by Regine Hess,
Chris­tian Fuhrmeister
and Monika Platzer

Kritische Berichte.
Journal for Art History
and Cultural Studies, 3/2021

With peer reviewed art­icles by Maja Lee-Voigt, Ito­han Osay­im­wese, Kenny R. Cupers, Ole W. Fisc­her, Monika Platzer, Regine Hess, Alex­an­dra Klei, Sabine Girg, Mira Anneli Naß, the announce­ment of the net­work of Black pro­fes­sion­als work­ing in the build­ing industry by Cath­ar­ina Meier, “Smash­ing Fig­ures” by Birgit Sze­panski, and a con­ver­sa­tion by Ben­jamin Kaufmann and Chris­tian Fuhrmeister.

Read more

Let­ter­ing “Schande“ applied to the ped­es­tal of the Lueger Memorial in Vienna, 2021 © Schandwache