Dr. Regine Hess, Senior researcher at the Chair of Construction Heritage and Preservation, Prof. Dr. Silke Langenberg, Institute of Preservation and Construction History (IDB) and Institute of Technology in Architecture (ITA), ETH Zurich © Laura Trump

“Archi­tec­ture and build­ing cul­ture, their research and medi­ation are in a state of flux. My dis­cip­line, archi­tec­tural history and the­ory, offers an enorm­ous vari­ety of meth­ods and top­ics, build­ing on a body of know­ledge since antiquity. At the moment we see a questioning not only of this know­ledge, but also a chal­len­ging of its teach­ing by stu­dents and fac­ulty alike. Gender Par­ity, diversity and inter­dis­cip­lin­ar­ity, cli­mate change and resource con­ser­va­tion, inter­rog­a­tions of hier­arch­ies and men­tal health are ques­tions that not only stu­dents and teach­ing assist­ants are con­cerned with. I see myself as part of these inter­rog­a­tions and try to con­trib­ute to pos­it­ive change.“

Research Interests

Archi­tec­ture History and The­ory 18th to 21st Cen­tury, Exhib­i­tion and Museum Stud­ies, Global Archi­tec­ture History and Heritage, Methodoloy

 

Journal Editor

Mem­ber of the edit­or­ial board of kritische berichte, Journal for Art History and Cul­tural Stud­ies, respons­ible for the annual archi­tec­ture issue
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Pro­fes­sional Biography

After pro­fes­sional activ­ity, Regine took up the study of Art History and Medi­eval and Mod­ern History at Goethe Uni­ver­sity, Frank­furt am Main, with a focus on archi­tec­ture history and monu­ment preservation. As a fel­low of DFG Gradu­ate col­loquium Psychic Ener­gies of Fine Arts and sup­por­ted by a schol­ar­ship of Evan­gel­isches Stud­i­en­werk, her PhD thesis was super­vised by Prof. Dr. Klaus Herd­ing and Prof. Dr. Chris­tian Freigang (2005–2009). There, Regine dealt with the cre­ation of emo­tions in the­ory and prac­tice of European archi­tec­ture from the 18th cen­tury up to today. The Cent­ral Institute of Art History at Munich awar­ded her PhD thesis with the Theodor Fisc­her Award.

Sub­sequently to her train­ing as a museum cur­ator at Staat­liche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe (2008–2010), Regine worked at the Archi­tec­ture Museum of TUM at Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich (2011–2015). She star­ted her teach­ing in 2009 at the Archi­tec­ture Depart­ment of Karlsruhe Institute of Tech­no­logy and has teached since at Tech­nical Uni­ver­sity of Munich (TUM), Tel Aviv Uni­ver­sity, Uni­ver­sity of Kassel and ETH Zürich. 2016 she received a schol­ar­ship from German Research Com­munity (DFG) for her research pro­ject Cell of the Future. Build­ing Exhib­i­tions in Ger­many. She was senior researcher at the Chair of Archi­tec­ture History and Cur­at­orial Prac­tice (Prof. Dr. Andres Lepik) at TUM (2016–2021) and at the Chair Con­struc­tion Heritage and Preservation (Prof. Dr. Silke Langenberg) at ETH Zurich (2021–2024). In 2018, she received the Azri­eli Archi­tec­tural Archive Fel­low­ship from Tel Aviv Museum of Art and spent sev­eral months in Israel research­ing on Post-war archi­tec­ture and land­scape design. Regine has sub­mit­ted the manu­script of her habilitation “Eph­emer­per­man­ent. Eine Architekturgeschichte großer Aus­s­tel­lungen” at April 30, 2024. It is cur­rently under eval­u­ation at the School of Engin­eer­ing and Design of TU Munich.

Net­works

She is part of the net­work D‑A-CH: Refram­ing Nach­kriegsar­chitek­tur in Österreich – Deutsch­land – Sch­weiz, which exis­ted from 2018 to 2020. Here, the research­ers rep­res­en­ted sig­ni­fic­ant archi­tec­ture archives such as the Aus­trian Museum of Archi­tec­ture (Architek­turzen­trum Wien), the Archi­tec­ture Museum of TUM at Munich, the gta Archives at ETHZ and the Süd­west­deutsches Archiv für Architek­tur und Ingenieurbau at Karlsruhe (SAAI). Together with Yael Allweil (Haifa), she edited Hous­ing Regimes – New Approaches to a State-Citizen-Relation (2020). In 2021 she pub­lished the bilin­gual, peer-reviewed issue Rassismus in der Architektur/Racism in Archi­tec­ture in col­lab­or­a­tion with Monika Platzer (Vienna) and Chris­tian Fuhrmeister (Munich). The pub­lic­a­tion Staats­bau­schule München. Architek­tur, Kon­struk­tion und Ausbildungstradition was pub­lished together with Silke Langenberg and Karl R. Kegler (Munich) in Feb­ru­ary 2022, on the 200th anniversary of one of the old­est schools of archi­tec­ture in the German-speak­ing world. The peer reviewed art­icle volume Between Con­ven­tional and Exper­i­mental – Mass Hous­ing and Pre­fab­ric­a­tion in Modernist Archi­tec­ture, together with Inbal Ben-Asher Gitler (Beer Sheba), Yael Allweil and Tzafrir Fainholtz (Jer­u­s­alem) was accep­ted for pub­lic­a­tion by Leuven Uni­ver­sity Press in Novem­ber 2021 and will be pub­lished in Octo­ber 2014.

Regine has pub­lished conference pro­ceed­ings such as the bilin­gual volume Architek­tur und Akteure. Praxis und Öffent­lich­keit in der Nach­kriegs­gesell­schaft (2018). She con­trib­uted to Arch+, Kun­st­chronik, Forum Stadt, Jahr­buch der Fak­ultät für Architek­tur der TUM, Kunst und Politik.Jahrbuch der Guernica-Gesell­schaft, sehepunkte, Kun­st­geschichte online – Open Peer Reviewed Journal, Allge­meines Künst­ler­lexikon (AKL), and Jahr­buch immers­iver Medien.

Next to her con­tri­bu­tion to sev­eral major art and archi­tec­ture exhib­i­tions between 2009 and 2013, Regine has cur­ated Bauen und Zei­gen. Aus Geschichte und Geg­en­wart der Kunsthalle at Staat­liche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe in 2014 and Paul Schneider-Esleben. Architekt at Archi­tec­ture museum of TUM at Pinakothek der Moderne in 2015, accom­pan­ied by exhib­i­tion catalogues. Regine is a suc­cess­ful found-raiser, both for scientific research and for exhibitions.

 

Mem­ber­ship

2021 – EAHN – European Archi­tec­tural History Net­work
2019 – Ulmer Ver­ein, Verb­and für Kunst- und Kul­tur­wis­senschaften
2016 – SAH – Soci­ety of Archi­tec­tural His­tor­i­ans
2013 – Verb­and Deutscher Kun­sthis­toriker
2006 – Alumna Evan­gel­isches Stud­i­en­werk Vil­ligst
2016 – 2020 ICOM Deutsch­land – Inter­na­tional Coun­cil of Museums
2009 – 2020 Guernica-Gesell­schaft, Karlsruhe

 

Hon­ours

Theodor Fisc­her Award, Award for Early Career Research in the History of Archi­tec­ture from the Nine­teenth to the Twenty-first Cen­tury, 2010
Cent­ral Institute of Art History – Theodor Fisc­her Award