FEATURED AUTHOR

Suzanne Strum

Scholar, architect and educator
Theory and History of Architecture

Suzanne Strum´s book - The Ideal of Total Environmental Control: Knud Lönberg-Holm, Buckminster Fuller and the SSA - was awarded a SAH-Mellon Author Award from the Society of Architectural Historians in 2017 and is a finalist for the FAD prize in Thought and Critique in 2019. This study explores some of the early definitions of ecological architecture in the United States as they developed within the context of Buckminster Fuller´s Structural Study Associates in the early 1930´s.

Subjects: Art & Visual Culture, Built Environment, Urban Studies

Biography

Suzanne Strum approaches  inquiry and teaching from an interdisciplinary and transnational perspective, integrating narratives and methodologies from the histories of technology, science, visual media, material culture, critical theory, cultural studies, economics and politics. Her work examines evolving meanings of technology, environmentalism and ecology.

Trained as an architect at Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, she has a Ph.D  from the Barcelona Architecture School, ETSAB of the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, UPC where she was also awarded a Master in Architecture and Urban Culture.

She  teaches in international architecture programs in Barcelona, Spain for the American University of Sharjah and for Calgary University. Previously, she was Co-director and Head of Studies of the Metropolis Master and Post Graduate Program in Architecture, a collaborative project between the UPC and the Centre of Contemporary Culture of Barcelona, and a lecturer in design and cultural studies at the Elisava School of Design and Engineering, Pompeu Fabra University.  She has taught for Texas A & M, Carlton University, Clemson University, and Technological of Monterrey,  and has participated in and led workshops and short courses for Central Saint Martins, Pratt Institute, Northeastern University and University of Pennsylvania.

Among her other activities, she has worked on a wide range of exhibitions, research and publication projects as a collaborator at the Centre of Contemporary Culture of Barcelona; the Architects Association of Catalonia, COAC; the Museum of Contemprary Art of Barcelona, MACBA; The Mies van der Rohe Foundation;  and for Fostering the Arts and Design Association, FAD. Her partnership, Demostudio is dedicated to renovation projects, new construction and environmental analysis. She is coeditor of Metropolis: Ciudades, redes, paisajes (GG, 2004) and the author of Barcelona: A Guide to Recent Architecture (Ellispsis 2001).

Education

Areas of Research / Professional Expertise

European and American modern and contemporary design, architecture, landscape and urbanism.

Books

Featured Title

News

I am invited to speak at the conference "Bauhaus Effects" for the centennial of the Bauhaus in 2019

By: Suzanne Strum
Subjects: Art & Visual Culture, Built Environment

Bauhaus conference in Ireland

A conference organised by the National College of Art and Design, University College Cork, University College Dublin and the Goethe Institut Dublin - 7-9 February 2019

As the centenary of the founding of the Bauhaus approaches, we seek contributors to reflect on the legacy and resonances of the innovative artistic, architectural, design and teaching practices developed there.

Bauhaus Effects aims to assemble an interdisciplinary collection of papers that analyse the repercussions of the legendary Bauhaus school in the hundred years since its inception, considering the ways in which the broad range of practices -- including material analysis, models of pedagogy, textile and wallpaper composition, theatre staging and costume design, photography, and interior systems – have transformed everyday experiences from the 1920s to the present day.

Bauhaus innovations and models of thought continue to resonate within the contemporary built environment, from chair construction to skyscraper design, from interior spaces to urban topographies, warranting a thorough, methodologically diverse studies of its effects a century after the school was founded.

Bauhaus Effects aims to investigate the continuing impact of the Bauhaus on an impressive range of contemporary practices across the globe. We propose that the Bauhaus was not just a radical art school but in fact initiated a fundamental paradigm shift in design culture whose import is ripe for assessment a century on.

I will be participating in a symposium at the Bauhaus Lab 2018 in Dessau