Senior Researcher
Dr. Rachel Lee
rachel.lee@tu-berlin.de
Habitat Unit, Room A 622
T + 49 – 30 – 314 – 21830
F + 49 – 30 – 314 – 21907
Institute for Architecture,
TU Berlin Strasse des 17. Juni 152
10623 Berlin
Curriculum Vitae
Dr. Rachel Lee has been a senior researcher at the Habitat Unit since January 2014. Rachel studied architecture at the Mackintosh School in Glasgow before pursuing her diploma in Berlin. In 2014 she completed her doctoral dissertation, "Negotiating Modernities: Otto Koenigsberger's Works and Networks in Exile" at the TU Berlin.
Rachel Lee's research focuses on the histories of colonial/postcolonial architecture and urbanism, tropical architecture and development cooperation, migration and exile, transnational practice and the transfer of knowledge and ideas.
Supported by post-doc research funding from the TU Berlin, she is currently preparing a research project that will investigate the history of East and West German development cooperation in sub-Saharan Africa. From 2012-13 she was a researcher on the DFG project "Neues Bauen in der Fremde: Wege, Wandel und Wirken der Weimarer Architekturmoderne unter den Bedingungen des Exils" at the BTU Cottbus.
Rachel Lee teaches on the international Urban Management master's course as well as the master's courses in Architecture and Urban Design. She has a wide range of experiences from working in architecture and planning offices. She is a German management committee member of European Architecture Beyond Europe (COST Action IS0904) and is on the editorial board of the online, open access, peer-reviewed journal ABE: European Architecture Beyond Europe. She is a member of MOD Institute Berlin/Bangalore and the Transnational Architecture Group.
2006-2013
Doctorate of Engineering (Dr.-Ing.)
TU Berlin
Thesis: Negotiating Modernities: Otto Koenigsberger's Works and Networks in Exile (1933-1951)
Supervisors: Prof. Dr. Peter Herrle, Chair of International Urbanism and Design, TU Berlin; Prof. Dr. Carola Hein, Growth and
Structure of Cities Department, Bryn Mawr College
2000-2003
Diploma in Architecture (Dipl.-Ing)
Kunsthochschule Berlin
Thesis: Räume der Migration
Supervisors: Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Scholz and Dr. Guenter Nest
1994-1998
Bachelor of Architecture (B.Arch (hons.))
Mackintosh School of Architecture, Glasgow School of Art
2014-
Research Associate
Habitat Unit, TU Berlin
2012-
Lecturer
Urban Management Masters Course, TU Berlin
2012-2013
Research Associate
BTU Cottbus
DFG Project: Neues Bauen in der Fremde: Wege, Wandel und Wirken der Weimarer Architekturmoderne unter den Bedingungen des Exils
2011-2014
German Management Committee Member
COST Action IS0904: European Architecture Beyond Europe
2007
Lecturer
Space Strategies Masters Course, Kunsthochschule Berlin
2014-
Beyond East-West: Development Cooperation in Sub-Saharan Africa in Divided Germany (1949-1990)
Habitat Unit, TU Berlin
(in preparation)
2006-2013
Doctoral Dissertation: Negotiating Modernities: Otto Koenigsberger's Works and Networks in Exile (1933-1951)
Supervisors: Prof. Dr. Peter Herrle, Chair of International Urbanism and Design, TU Berlin; Prof. Dr. Carola Hein, Growth and Structure of Cities Department, Bryn Mawr College
2012-2013
BTU Cottbus
DFG Project: Neues Bauen in der Fremde: Wege, Wandel und Wirken der Weimarer Architekturmoderne unter den Bedingungen des Exils
Funding acquired by Dr. Regina Goeckede
SS 2014
Seminar: Import/Export
Habitat Unit, TU Berlin
WS 2012, 2013
Seminar: Academic Writing and Research Methods
Urban Management Masters Course, TU Berlin
SS 2007
Seminar: Stadt/Raum/Öffentlichkeit
Space Strategies Masters Course, Kunsthochschule Berlin
2003-2010
Teaching English as a foreign language at all levels on a freelance basis, with specialisations in English for Architects and Planners, and International Business English. Clients included: Bundesamt für Bauwesen und Raumordnung, White&Case, KfW and IAV
Books
-
Book contributions
Regina Goeckede: Neues Bauen in der Fremde: Wege, Wandel und Wirken der Weimarer Architekturmoderne unter den Bedingungen des Exils (forthcoming - 2015)
Chapters on Alfons Anker and Franz Hillinger
Refereed articles
Digital Lieux de Mémoire. Connecting history and remembrance through the Internet with Madalena Cunha Matos and Johan Lagae in ed. Johan Lagae, "Colonial Today," ABE: Architecture Beyond Europe, 4, 2014
Constructing A Shared Vision: Otto Koenigsberger and Tata & Sons in ed. GA Bremner and Diego Caltana, "Corporate Patronage," ABE: Architecture Beyond Europe, 3, 2013
Marg Magazine: A Tryst with Architectural Modernity. Modern architecture as seen from an independent India, with Kathleen James-Chakraborty, ABE: Architecture Beyond Europe, 1, 2012
Other articles and publications
An Architectural Link between Masala Dosas and War
in ed. Johan Lagae, "Colonial Today," ABE: Architecture Beyond Europe, 4, 2014
Maximizing the Local / Really Modern in ed. Anne Fenk, Tile von Damm, Leona Lynen, "Crowdsourcing the City", Weltstadt, 10, 2014
Searching for Otto Koenigsberger's Shrinking Heritage in Booming Bangalore in ed. Anne Fenk, Tile von Damm, Leona Lynen, "Crowdsourcing the City", Weltstadt, 10, 2014
Having a Blast with the Past: Bygone Bangalore and Biryanis in ed. Anne Fenk, Tile von Damm, Leona Lynen, "Crowdsourcing the City", Weltstadt, 10, 2014
contributions to the Transnational Architecture Group (TAG)
website e.g. Designing Buildings in 15 Minutes: A day in the life of Otto Koenigsberger, Government Architect to the Govt. of H.H. the Maharaja of Mysore
Theresienstadt: eine Zeitreise, Roland Wildberg and Uta Fischer, (Wildfisch, 2011) [concept, graphic design and layout]
Conference Proceedings
From Static Master Plans to 'Elastic Planning' and Participation: Otto Koenigsberger's Planning Work in India (1939-1951) "Past as Guide to Sustainable Futures" International Planning
History Society, St Augustine, Florida [forthcoming: July 2014]
Conference Papers
2014
From Static Master Plans to 'Elastic Planning' and Participation: Otto Koenigsberger's Planning Work in India (1939-1951) "Past as Guide to Sustainable Futures" International Planning
History Society, St Augustine, Florida [forthcoming: July 2014]
2013
Erica Mann: Breaking Boundaries
"Global Experts Off the Radar II," University of Ghent
Searching for the Social in the Tropical
"The Influence of Fry and Drew," University of Liverpool
An Architectural Link Between Masala Dosas and War
"Dissonant Architectural Heritage in the Postcolonial
Age," Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon
2012
Minnette De Silva: Marginalised and Peripheral?
"Global Experts Off the Radar," University College Dublin
Otto Koenigsberger and Prefabrication in Modern India
"Our Public Sphere, Our House, Our City," Urban Mela, Bangalore, organised by the German Ministry of Culture
Constructing a Shared Vision: Otto Koenigsberger and Tata & Sons
"Colonial, Imperial or Corporate Architecture. Architectural diversity or uniformity across time, agency or geography," University of Edinburgh
2011
Building a [Mega]nation: India 1947-1951
"[Mega]structures," Politecnico di Milano
The Government Housing Factory, New Delhi
"Actors and Networks of Expertise," University of Liverpool
2010
Bridging Modernities: Otto Koenigsberger's Work in Bangalore
MOD Institute, Bangalore
Conference panel chairs
Architectures of Exile: Visions and re-visions of the global modern in the age of the refugee
with Dr. Regina Goeckede
Conference: Crossing Boundaries: Rethinking European
Architecture Beyond Europe, Palermo, 13-17 April, 2014
Working papers
-
2014
Otto Koenigsberger: Building Bangalore, Scientifically
German Consulate Science Circle Talk, Max Mueller Bhavan/Goethe Institut, Bangalore
Otto Koenigsberger: Government Architect of Mysore State (1939-1948)
Public Works Department Bangalore, Karnataka State
2013
Otto Koenigsberger: Practising in India
Master of Advanced Studies Program, ETH Zurich
Otto Koenigsberger: Memories of an Architectural Legacy in Bangalore and Mysore State
Bangalore International Centre, Bangalore
Otto Koenigsberger's Architecture in Bangalore
Suchitra Film Society, Bangalore
2014
GAHTC (Global Architectural History Teaching Collaborative) Grant
awarded to develop a lecture series on Architecture and Climate in a Global Perspective funded by Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and administered by MIT School of Architecture and Planning and its History Theory and Criticism Program.
Application submitted with Daniel Barber (University of Pennsylvania), Jiat-Hwee Chang (National University of Singapore), Iain Jackson (University of Liverpool), Albert Narath (University of Oregon), Ola Uduku (University of Edinburgh)
2014
TU Berlin Internal Funding
awarded to prepare research proposal for external funding
2014
INTACH New Delhi Travel and Research Grant
awarded to undertake further research in Bangalore for the preparation of a book publication on Otto Koenigsberger's work
2013
COST Short Term Scientific Mission
awarded to undertake research into the institutionalisation of Tropical Architecture at the archives of the Architectural Association, London
2012
COST Short Term Scientific Mission
awarded to collaborate with Prof Kathleen James-Chakraborty at University College Dublin
2010-2012
Elsa-Neumann Research Grant
awarded for doctoral thesis "Negotiating Modernities: Otto Koenigsberger's Works and Networks in Exile (1933-1951)"
2006
INTACH New Delhi Travel and Research Grant
awarded for 3-month stay in India to conduct initial research into Otto Koenigsberger's work as an architect and planner in Bangalore, Bhubaneswar, Jamshedpur and Delhi
1998
INTACH New Delhi Travel and Research Grant
awarded for 2-month stay in India to survey Chemrey Monastery, Ladakh
ABE: European Architecture Beyond Europe
Member of the editorial board of the peer-reviewed, open-access scientific journal
http://dev.abejournal.eu/
id22: Institut fuer kreative Nachhaltigkeit
http://id22.net/
Curatorial work
Crossing Boundaries
Positions of five contemporary video artists
Short film programme as part of the Crossing Boundaries: Rethinking European Architecture Beyond Europe conference, Palermo, 2014
street|media
stop-motion video installation at the Collegium Hungaricum as part of the Media Facades Festival, Berlin, 2008
http://www.mediafacades.eu/2008/festival
100% Pure - Real Quality
multimedia installation conceived and realised at 1 Shanthi Road Studio/Gallery, Bangalore, 2006
6m²
multimedia installation as part of the Thalia Theater and Bauhaus Stiftung's International Summer School, 2005
Terezín into Europe
planning and design of an exhibition about Terezin's history shown in Terezin, Berlin, Brussels and Auschwitz, 2005