New at the department! Prof. Dr. Anna-Maria Meister

Anna-Maria Meister has held the professorship for theory of architecture since April 1, 2023
Anna-Maria MeisterAlona Antoniadis

Anna-Maria Meister is an architect, historian and writer, and professor of architecture theory and science at TU Darmstadt. She works at the intersection of architecture's histories and the histories of science and technology, focusing on the interdependencies of processes of design with the design of processes, especially regarding their political, social, and aesthetic consequences. Meister received a joint PhD degree in the History and Theory of Architecture and the Council of the Humanities from Princeton University, and holds degrees in architecture from Columbia University, New York, and the TU Munich and is a licensed architect. 

She was a fellow at the Max-Planck Institute for History of Science, Berlin, and a postdoctoral fellow at the TU Munich. Her work has been supported by grants and fellowships from the Graham Foundation, the Berlin Program for Advanced German and European Studies, DAAD, and Columbia University, among others. She is currently completing a book manuscript titled Formatting Objects, Forming Values: The Paper Architectures of 20th Century Germany and a special issue for the Journal of the History of Knowledge on entangled temporalities. Her writing has been published in Britisch Journal for the History of Science, Architectural Histories, Harvard Design Magazine, Volume, Uncube, and as book chapters in The Architecture Machine (2020) and Dust and Data (2019), among others.

She is co-curator and co-editor of the international collaborative project "Radical Pedagogies"; the eponymous book came out with MIT Press in spring 2022.

Teaching

Anna-Maria Meister's teaching is closely linked to her research: The analysis of architectural processes read through their social impact, or bureaucratic and (proto-) digital design processes that remake large-scale built environments, or even the critical sifting of technophilic rhetoric of efficiency, rationalization, precision, or function. Throughout, our discipline's pressing questions about sustainability (even beyond technicist belief in progress) or diversity (as a true change of perspective, scientifically as well as in practice) are always at the forefront. The questions that preoccupy them are therefore the following: who produces which architectures with what (social, political or aesthetic) intention? At whose expense are they produced? Who is involved, who is excluded? Which social images does architecture construct, and which architecture is prescribed by which society? What responsibility does architecture have beyond the new-build ductus, and what responsibility do the architects have? In her seminars, she methodically and thematically explores selected questions, always closely linked to reading and writing practice through iterative text production and by introducing students to multi-perspective bibliographies and formats.

Architecture, or rather, spatial practices shape environments in the midst of communities and societies. The responsibility this entails necessitates a well-founded critical historical and theoretical examination. Anna-Maria Meister's goal is to provide students with the techniques and methods to do so.

Publications (selection)
  • Colomina, Beatriz, Ignacio Gonzalez Galan, Evangelos Kotsioris, Anna-Maria Meister. Radical Pedagogies. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press (2022).
  • Meister, Anna-Maria. „Archives, Bureaucracies, Architecture: Now You See Me, Now You Don't“ in Dimensions, issue 1 (Spring 2021).
  • Meister, Anna-Maria. „Ernst Neufert's 'Lebensgestaltungslehre': Formatting Life beyond the Built“ in „Learning by the Book“ (eds. A. Creager, M. Grote, E. Leong) BJHS Themes 5 (2020): 167–85. mehr
  • Meister, Anna-Maria. „'Architects and Housewives': Rationalizing Architecture after WWI“ in a special issue of Architecture Histories (Journal of the EAHN). Eds. S. Hochhäusl and E. Sassin.
  • Meister, Anna-Maria. „Paper(less) Architecture: Medial and Institutional Superimpositions“ in The Architecture Machine. The Role of Computers in Architecture. Edited by Teresa Fankhänel and Andres Lepik (Birkhäuser: 2020).
  • Meister, Anna-Maria. „From Musterhaus to Meisterhäuser: A trajectory of typologies,“ in Dust and Data, ed. Ines Weizman. Berlin: Spectorbooks (2019).
  • Meister, Anna-Maria. „Paper Constructions: Ethics and Aesthetics on Paper“ in RadDAR, issue 1 (January 2019).
  • Colomina, Beatriz, Ignacio Gonzalez Galan, Evangelos Kotsioris, Anna-Maria Meister. „Radical Pedagogies: Notes Towards a Taxonomy of Global Experiments“ in Building Cultures Valparaiso: Pedagogy, Practice and Poetry at the Valparaiso School of Architecture and Design, eds. Sony Devabhaktuni, Patricia Guaita and Cornelia Tapparelli. London: Routledge Chapman&Hall (2016).
  • Meister, Anna-Maria. „Formatting the Modern Dream“ in Harvard Design Magazine issue 43 „Shelf Life“ (Fall 2016).
  • Meister, Anna-Maria. „The Radical Pedagogies Project“ (co-authored with Beatriz Colomina, Ignacio G. Galán, Evangelos Kotsioris) inVolume n. 45 „Learning“ (2015).
  • Colomina, Beatriz, Ignacio Gonzalez Galan, Evangelos Kotsioris, Anna-Maria Meister. „Radical Pedagogies: Educating Change“ in Quaderns d'Arquitectura i Urbanisme, Publicació del Col∙legi d'arquitectes de Catalunya, 267 (2015).
  • Meister, Anna-Maria. „Radical Remoteness: The HfG Ulm as Institution of Dissidence,“ in Architecture and the Paradox of Dissidence, ed. Ines Weizman. London: Routledge (2013).
  • Meister, Anna-Maria. „Für James Bond reicht's noch (Mendelsohn's Red-Banner Factory in St. Petersburg)“ in Baumeister 2 (February 2012).
  • Colomina, Beatriz, Esther Choi, Ignacio Gonzalez Galan, Anna-Maria Meister. „Radical Pedagogies in Architectural Education“ in Architectural Review 1388 Volume CCXXXII (October 2012).
  • Meister, Anna-Maria. „Architecture in Uniform.“ Review of Architecture in Uniform by Jean-Louis Cohen, in Archplus 204 (October 2011).
  • Meister, Anna-Maria. „The Space Left Behind“ in Reception Rooms. Princeton: IHUM (2011).
Lectures and presentations (selection since 2019)
  • "Radical Pedagogies." Invited Talk (with B. Colomina, I. G. Galán and E. Kotsioris) at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, September 2022.
  • "Radical Pedagogies: Methods of a Global Project." Eingeladener Vortrag an der Tokyo University, Februar 2022.
  • "Processing Models, Modelling Processes." Eingeladener Vortrag an dem Symposium Digital.Visual.Material., Carnegie Mellon University, May 2021.
  • "Of Volunteers, Vereine and Housewives: The Makers of Modern German Architecture." Eingeladener Vortrag, ETH Zurich, April 2021.
  • "Gleichheit, Gemeinnützigkeit, Globaler Export: Das DIN Institut in der modernen Architektur." Eingeladener Vortrag, ETH Zurich, März 2021.
  • "Architecture from the Karteikasten: Ernst Neufert's Total Systems of Order." Eingeladener Vortrag, Center for Critical Studies in Architecture (CCSA), German Architecture Museum (DAM) Frankfurt, Januar 2020.
  • "Radical Pedagogies." Eingeladener Vortrag an dem Symposium Architectures of Education, Nottingham Contemporary, November 2019.
  • "Scripting, Norming, Regulating: A Proto-Algorithmic Architecture History?" Eingeladener Vortrag im Forschungsseminar 1955-1961 Design and Languagues, Ecole Nationale Superiereure Paris-Saclay, Paris, May 2019.
  • "Radical Pedagogies: Radicalism versus Institutionality." Eingeladener Vortrag im Rahmen der Reihe Testing University, HafenCity Universität Hamburg, Januar 2019.
Exhibitions (selection)
  • "Radical Pedagogies. Action-Reaction-Interaction." Installation auf der Architekturbiennale Venedig (mit B. Colomina, B. Eversole, E. Kotsioris, I. G. Galán, F. Vannucchi), Venedig, Mai-November 2014.
  • "Radical Pedagogies. A (provisional) Cartography." Installation auf der 3. Lisbon Architecture Triennale Close, Closer (mit B. Colomina, I. G. Galán und E. Kotsioris), Lisbon, September 2013.
  • "The Secret Life of Plants." Ausstellung (mit A. Acciavatti and J. Dolven), Princeton University, 2013.
  • "Thesis Matter(s)." Ausstellung und Multimedia Installation (mit Ignacio G. Galan, B. Eversole, F. Vannucchi), Princeton University, 2012.