Svava Riesto | University of Copenhagen (original) (raw)

Books by Svava Riesto

UNTOLD STORIES: On Women, Gender and Architecture in Denmark, 2023

Co-written book by by Jannie Rosenberg Bendsen, Svava Riesto and Henriette Steiner. This book t... more Co-written book by by Jannie Rosenberg Bendsen, Svava Riesto and
Henriette Steiner.

This book tells a new story about twentieth-century architecture in Denmark. For the first time ever, readers get an overall picture of the key contribution made by women to the architecture of Danish welfare society in the period 1930–1980. The book’s five chapters present hitherto untold stories about how architecture comes into being through creative collaborations that cut across genders and professional disciplines. Women have contributed to all aspects of architecture, from kitchens and buildings to landscape architecture and urban planning, and their stories highlight the hidden diversity that has shaped Denmark’s buildings, cities and landscapes. The importance of this diversity must be understood and appreciated in the present if we are to create new ways of living and building in the future – a pressing need in light of the many crises we face as a society today.

The book was written as part of the research project Women in Danish Architecture at the University of Copenhagen (https://www.womenindanisharchitecture.dk/?lang=en)

Rooted in Change. Christiania and preservation as a resource in urban transformation, 2007

Edited by Anne Tietjen, Svava Riesto, and Pernille Skov. This book investigates how we can ima... more Edited by Anne Tietjen, Svava Riesto, and Pernille Skov.

This book investigates how we can imagine the past as a resource for the development of the city of the future. It does so by a close-up investigation of Christiania - a squatter district in Copenhagen, Denmark, as it has evolved from the early 1970s until 2007. While this self-decleared 'free-town' has primarily been studied as a social experiment, we provide a reading of Christiania as an evolving urban landscape, focusing particularly on the changing role of cultural heritage in the making of Christiania and how its characteristic spatial orders and materiality have emerged out of specific social practices . The case of Christiania shows particularly clearly that the approach to cultural heritage is changing and this book investigates how, why and with what potential. You can find the editorial here, as well as some examples from the articles, dealing with specific aspects of Christiania's buildings and landscapes as heritage. The book emerges from a collective interdisciplinary research project that was led by Anne Tietjen and Svava Riesto. Participants in the research project, who have written chapters in the book are Pernille Skov, Martin Søberg, June Ditlevsen, Kathrine Thygesen, Lucy Caudrey, Line Kjær, Søren Holm Hvilsby, Kasper Lægring Nielsen, Anne Nielsen, Suzette Duus Hansen.

byWomen. A guidebook to everyday architecture in Greater Copenhagen, 2022

Co-written book by Liv Løvetand Rahbek, Svava Riesto and Henriette Steiner. byWomen invites y... more Co-written book by Liv Løvetand Rahbek, Svava Riesto and Henriette Steiner.

byWomen invites you to discover everyday spaces, cities and landscapes all made by women. These Danish woman designers, architects, landscape architects and planners often collaborated in various constellations and networks rather than working individually. And their works tell us a hitherto unknown part of the history of the materialisation of the 20th century Danish Welfare state.

byWomen reveals 50 works, some well-known other unknown, from the Greater Copenhagen region – all designed by women. Besides introduction, photos, plans and anecdotes, the book works as a guide too offering a map, addresses, and registers.

by Svava Riesto, Kris Pint, Nevena Dakovic, Dalia Dijokienė, Juan A. García-Esparza, Katarzyna Kopecka-Piech, Karen Lens, Adriana Martins, Asma Mehan, Bie Plevoets, Angelos Theocharis, Jana Culek, Lamila Simisic, Mirza Emirhafizović, and Inesa Kurtinaitienė

Vademecum. 77 Minor Terms for Writing Urban Places, 2020

Words help us to make sense of what happens in the city, and the words we use to describe urban p... more Words help us to make sense of what happens in the city, and the words we use to describe urban places imply a specific outlook. This book offers 77 concepts in the hope that they will stimulate new ways of describing and narrating European cities. The concepts are less obvious, “minor” terms that can nevertheless be used to write European cities anew, in ways that emphasize the local, alternative, disenfranchised, and overlooked. Minor concepts can reveal blind spots in urban discourse, or bring insights from one discipline or language to another.

Vademecum means walk with me, and we imagine this book as a field guide you can carry in your pocket while you explore real-life urban places. The arbitrary number of 77 terms captures a particular moment in a experiential collective process among 40 European researchers during the COVID-19 lockdown. This process brought together perspectives from different disciplines and urban settings—from Lithuania to Portugal, from Ireland to Croatia.

An incomplete and open-ended book, it is also an invitation for readers to add their own “minor concepts,” to open new perspectives and write urban places anew.

Edited by Klaske Havik, Kris Pint, Svava Riesto and Henriette Steiner. NAi Publishers.

Amsterdam University Press: Landscape and Heritage Studies, 2018

Biography of an Industrial Landscape tells the story of one of the most significant urban redevel... more Biography of an Industrial Landscape tells the story of one of the most significant urban redevelopment projects in northern Europe at the turn of the century. Examining the reinvention of the Carlsberg brewery site in Copenhagen as a city district, Svava Riesto unpacks the deeper assumptions about value that lie behind contemporary design, spatial planning and heritage practices.

In particular, this book examines ways of valuing a vital yet seldom explicitly discussed feature of industrial landscapes: open space. Carlsberg's industrial open spaces were largely disregarded during the redevelopment, which was founded on canonical heritage thinking and ideas about urban space that were poorly equipped to include the characteristics of Carlsberg's many parking lots, workers' gardens, road systems and industrial storage spaces in the design's considerations.

As a response, the book presents a set of stories that reappraise industrial open spaces as historical sites and potential values in the future city. Drawing on Henri Lefebvre and biographical approaches to landscape research, the Carlsberg site's open spaces are presented anew as an interplay of materials, practices and the imagination - shaped and reshaped by water, yeast, industrial working routines and conflicting ideas about the future city.

Papers by Svava Riesto

Radical Housing Journal, 2024

Narratives about the 'failure' of large-scale post-World War II housing are now guiding major phy... more Narratives about the 'failure' of large-scale post-World War II housing are now guiding major physical, social, and economic changes in neighborhoods all over Europe. This is true even in Denmark and Sweden, which have long been known for their welfare states and benevolent housing policies. Today, however, both countries have enacted new national anti-segregation measures that call for major physical and social changes to neighborhoods built in the postwar era, even as the opinions of local communities and residents of such neighborhoods have been only sparsely heard-if at all. By working with the method 'witness seminars', we-as the research collective Aktion Arkivforeground residents' perspectives and their collective resistance: the effects and affects of top-down changes. While sharing their lived experiences and actions, residents say that architects and planners can 'simply say no' and thereby refuse to participate in these actions.

Journal of Architecture, 2023

Today, while there is a pressing need to rethink architectural practices in the face of societal,... more Today, while there is a pressing need to rethink architectural practices in the face of societal, climatic, and ecological crises, a better understanding of how architects in the past have rethought their role and contribution seem increasingly relevant. This article examines projects from the 1960s and 70s by two Danish women architects, Susanne Ussing and Anne Marie Rubin, and the people with whom they worked. These architects actively wanted to create living environments to stimulate a better society and they did so by practicing architecture differently. Starting from the significant contributions that Ussing and Rubin made for the exhibition ‘Alternative Architecture’ at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in 1977, I discuss what strategies they used and what alternative architecture meant for them. Ussing and Rubin’s works have only been scarcely discussed by architectural historians, yet they contributed to developing participatory approaches to architecture, shifting epistemologies in design and planning, foregrounding women’s experiences, and, in one project, addressing anti-racist agendas. Methodologically, I propose ways of working in the face of scant material in official architectural archives and ways of storying architecture as collaboration rather than as individual creation. This article builds on research carried out in the project Women in Danish Architecture 1925–1975 (www.womenindanisharchitecture.dk).

International Journal of Heritage Studies, 2021

This article addresses uses of heritage in urban planning projects that seek to adapt coastal lan... more This article addresses uses of heritage in urban planning projects that seek to adapt coastal landscapes to increasing risks of flooding, storm surges, and sea level rise. We interrelate concepts from recent research on the climate-heritage-nexus with contemporary coastal climate adaptation projects to reveal some of the complex realities and nuances that are apparent on the ground, and to raise heritage concerns for future practice. Questioning the role that heritage plays in specific climate adaptation projects from Denmark and the Netherlands, two low-lying countries with long coastlines facing climate risks, we show the wide range of roles that heritage can play in climate adaptation planning and we propose a framework to conceptualise heritage in this context. The study shows the important role that climate imaginaries (i.e. depictions, affect, and ways of apprehending the climate past) play in climate adaptation projects, and reveals national and local differences. Finally, we discuss the knowledge gained from climate adaption projects in terms of developing dynamic responses to climate change, of working with rather than against landscape processes, and the potential role of heritage in creating climateresilient living environments.

Our everyday encounters with green open spaces, with landscapes, include spaces right where we li... more Our everyday encounters with green open spaces, with landscapes, include spaces right where we live. This is particularly true for the large proportion of the European population that lives in postWorld War II mass housing complexes, given that most of these estates—often subsidised by welfare state initiatives—were planned and constructed as built volumes situated in open green areas. These housing complexes may furthermore be connected spatially or by pathways to large-scale park systems as a result of the extensive public planning and design that occurred in European welfare states in the decades following World War II. Despite the scale and omnipresence of these everyday landscapes for living, they have hitherto remained largely understudied beyond rather bold and generalising narratives. Yet, they form the focal point for this special issue of Landscape Research, which presents ‘welfare landscapes’ as a new research field and provides new knowledge, primarily from Denmark and S...

Website of the Society of Architectural Historians Great Britain, 2021

Landscape Research, 2021

This article proposes the concept ‘welfare landscape’ to better understand post-war social housin... more This article proposes the concept ‘welfare landscape’ to better understand post-war social housing in the context of contemporary renewal projects. We study of the iconic 1960s housing estate Albertslund Syd near Copenhagen as a welfare landscape and ask how it relates to two core values associated with welfare: communality and individual well-being. Examining architectural plans and the ways that people have used, lived in and understood this landscape over time, we show that the welfare landscape is a dynamic and agonistic terrain in which different modes of individuality and communality are constantly(re)negotiated. Specific landscape elements are active agents in this negotiation. We conclude that Albertslund Syd’s renovation plan relies on a reductive reading of this dynamic landscape, and we call for a better understanding of the capacities of welfare landscapes to facilitate various modes of individuality and collectively over a long time span.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/01426397.2020.1849587?needAccess=true

Mass housing of the Scandinavian Welfare States. Exploring histories and design strategies, 2020

This article presents the interdisciplinary research project Reconfiguring Welfare Landscapes: Op... more This article presents the interdisciplinary research project Reconfiguring Welfare Landscapes: Open spaces of Danish Post-war Housing Estates Reconfigured. We revisit the green open spaces of social housing estates as spaces in their own right, with their own histories and and future potentials. By doing so, we aim to understand what ideas about well-being and welfare these landscapes materialize, and how they change over time, together with changing conceptions, ideas and uses. We argue that a better understanding of welfare landscapes of post-war housing estates can guide social housing estates’ development and their capacity to be welfare landscapes in the future, providing just and sustainable landscapes for living.

Mass Housing in the Scandinavian Welfare States: Exploring Histories and Design Approaches, 2020

Post-war housing projects are increasingly connected to discussions about how to renovate, renew ... more Post-war housing projects are increasingly connected to discussions about how to renovate, renew and reconnect modernist urban areas in the city in sustainable, resilient and just ways. The stigma and polarized perceptions of large social housing areas in the public debate call for more nuanced understandings. This, we argue, should involve a closer understanding of their histories, present situations and future scenarios. Focusing on examples from Denmark and Sweden, two countries often associated with a strong welfare state system, the articles in this volume are concerned with the dynamic histories of mass housing, including their contemporary everyday cultures, materialities and future reconfiguration.

Maritime Studies

Across Europe, coasts are drastically being changed to adapt to relative sea level rise, which wi... more Across Europe, coasts are drastically being changed to adapt to relative sea level rise, which will influence coastal landscapes and heritage in many ways. In this paper, we introduce a methodological starting point for analysing the ways in which landscape architects and spatial planners engage with coastal landscapes and coastal heritage in the context of current climate adaptation projects. We test these methodologies by applying them to the Marconi dike strengthening project in Delfzijl, the Netherlands. This city’s dike fortification is an interesting case, as it offers many opportunities for re-designing heritage. The city borders the Wadden Sea area, a tidal mudflat area protected as a UNESCO World Heritage Site for its natural and geological heritage values. The area also consists of a rich cultural landscape, which is overlooked in the public image and in local policy. We conclude that landscape architects and planners should strengthen not only the dike, but also the inter...

Heritage, Democracy and the Public. Nordic Approaches, 2016

How can cultural heritage contribute to socially sustainable development in democratic societies?... more How can cultural heritage contribute to socially sustainable development in democratic societies? This book chapter explores new heritage frontiers in collaborative spatial planning processes by way of two innovative planning processes from Denmark.

Rikke Stenbro & Svava Riesto Rikke Stenbro is a Danish art historian based in Oslo. As a heritage... more Rikke Stenbro & Svava Riesto Rikke Stenbro is a Danish art historian based in Oslo. As a heritage researcher and urbanist her work is both theory and praxis focused on the way in which architectural interventions address the temporal texture of urban sites and situations. For the last few years she has been increasingly interested in the built fabric of the recent past and in addressing architectural preservation from a large-scale perspective. Suburban and urban landscapes, mass housing, infrastructural systems and the coexistence and interrelatedness between them are thus central points of interest in her research and in the various planning and development projects she has been involved in as a consultant. While writing this article Stenbro held a position as senior researcher at NIKU (Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research) she has since then taken up a position as senior advisor within urbanism and cultural heritage at Rambøll, Norway. rikke.stenbro@ramboll.no

Spool, 2018

Increasingly celebrated, often without questioning, “green architecture” calls for a substantiate... more Increasingly celebrated, often without questioning, “green architecture” calls for a substantiated discussion. This article explores how design critique can contribute to the thinking and practice around green architecture, particularly green facades, which are growing in number and significance. How can green facades be critically discussed, beyond the dominating glossy project presentations and quantitative measurements of technological and ecological aspects? This article studies the green facades in the architectural competition, Oluf Bager’s Plaza, 2016, in Odense, Denmark, using two traditions of critique: Noël Carroll’s art criticism, in which green facades are seen as part of a designed work that follows certain intentions, and Mary McLeod’s concept of architecture as public domain that requires critical attention towards broader cultural, social, and economic processes. The study shows that the projects for the new Oluf Bager’s Plaza strike a balance between different ambitions, mainly adjusting to the historical context, while also answering the paradoxical double aim of Odense to become a densely built yet green city. The assumption that green facades can bridge the gap between density and green-ness became an important premise for the project. Green architecture should therefore be critiqued from multiple angles, including the ideas, plans, politics, and economics that shape future cities.

Nordisk Tidsskrift for Informationsvidenskab og Kulturformidling

This article discusses the understanding of urbanity invoked by the Norwegian drama series SKAM. ... more This article discusses the understanding of urbanity invoked by the Norwegian drama series SKAM. It does so by revisiting the four short preambles to each of the series’ four seasons, thus outlining the central narratives used to frame each season. Norwegian culture is characterised by a long-lived tradition for valuing nature and life in the countryside over and above urban life. In this context, SKAM arguably appears as a sea change, using new media and narrative forms to aestheticize the life of a new generation of teenagers in Oslo. However, this article’s close reading of selected sequences of the series illuminates SKAM’s indebtedness to an anti-urban tradition. According to this tradition, the city centre is seen as dark and dangerous and full of corrupting temptations, and, in contrast, what lies outside the city is regarded as authentic, liberating and morally superior. What is at stake is a dual-sided evaluation of city and countryside – building on binaries such as genuin...

Fabrik og Bolig, 2020

This article examines how the listing of buildings creates an authorized history of postwar welfa... more This article examines how the listing of buildings creates an authorized history of postwar welfare society in Denmark. Listing has a significant impact on the physical environment, and in Denmark its legal purpose is to “safeguard old buildings” that reflect “essential features of societal development […], including housing conditions” of (and for) the population. Yet, the perspectives from which this history is constructed, and the underlying ideas about architecture on which it relies, are only sketchily outlined, let alone openly discussed.
This article unpacks the set of values that seems to underlie Danish listing practice, and discusses them in relation to the expanded notions of historiography and architecture that were formulated in the post-war decades. We ask: what ideas about history and architecture underly decisions about listing, specifically the listing of postwar welfare housing in Denmark?
A starting point for the article is that housing development has been an essential feature of the Danish welfare state since 1945, in terms not only of its quantity and extent, but also of its cultural, political, and social-historical significance. We show that the most widespread housing types in Denmark – standardized singlefamily housing, and large-scale social housing estates – were designed as part of a large-scale welfare landscape, and were closely tied both to national politics and to cultural, demographic, ideological, and financial developments in the welfare society. Yet, while the majority of Denmark’s population today lives in homes built after 1945, housing from this period has largely escaped listing. While there are approximately 9,000 listed buildings in Denmark, only 27 of them are dwellings erected after 1945. These 27 dwellings are canonical villas designed by famous male architects, located in the region north of Copenhagen where the country’s best-educated people live.
Although the listing of premodern housing has gradually become more inclusive over the years (including poorhouses, etc.), the legacy of the Danish welfare state — in which equality was a core value — is paradoxically represented in listings that focus on the elite and the solitary architectural masterpiece. The investigation shows a discrepancy between the stated purpose to represent “significant societal developments,” including living conditions and the canonical and thereby elite perspectives applied to the listing of post-1945-housing.
We conclude by urging a discussion of the political implications of listing. Further, we ask what listing would be like if one were to apply a more inclusive understanding of history, and a more relational concept of architectural value. Is listing possible outside of the canonical, masterpiece-oriented architectural paradigm, which has revealed its own blind spots in relation to welfare state housing? We call for a societal debate about the purpose of listing and its role in society, if indeed it is still relevant at all. Observing the rise of activism in recent years, whereby new groups of citizens and young people have engaged in protests about listing and nature conservation in Denmark, we argue that current debates about listing and conservation are about much more than the representation of fixed histories and the architectural canon.

UNTOLD STORIES: On Women, Gender and Architecture in Denmark, 2023

Co-written book by by Jannie Rosenberg Bendsen, Svava Riesto and Henriette Steiner. This book t... more Co-written book by by Jannie Rosenberg Bendsen, Svava Riesto and
Henriette Steiner.

The book was written as part of the research project Women in Danish Architecture at the University of Copenhagen (https://www.womenindanisharchitecture.dk/?lang=en)

Rooted in Change. Christiania and preservation as a resource in urban transformation, 2007

Edited by Anne Tietjen, Svava Riesto, and Pernille Skov. This book investigates how we can ima... more Edited by Anne Tietjen, Svava Riesto, and Pernille Skov.

byWomen. A guidebook to everyday architecture in Greater Copenhagen, 2022

Co-written book by Liv Løvetand Rahbek, Svava Riesto and Henriette Steiner. byWomen invites y... more Co-written book by Liv Løvetand Rahbek, Svava Riesto and Henriette Steiner.

Vademecum. 77 Minor Terms for Writing Urban Places, 2020

An incomplete and open-ended book, it is also an invitation for readers to add their own “minor concepts,” to open new perspectives and write urban places anew.

Edited by Klaske Havik, Kris Pint, Svava Riesto and Henriette Steiner. NAi Publishers.

Amsterdam University Press: Landscape and Heritage Studies, 2018

Radical Housing Journal, 2024

Journal of Architecture, 2023

International Journal of Heritage Studies, 2021

Website of the Society of Architectural Historians Great Britain, 2021

Landscape Research, 2021

Mass housing of the Scandinavian Welfare States. Exploring histories and design strategies, 2020

Mass Housing in the Scandinavian Welfare States: Exploring Histories and Design Approaches, 2020

Maritime Studies

Heritage, Democracy and the Public. Nordic Approaches, 2016

Spool, 2018

Nordisk Tidsskrift for Informationsvidenskab og Kulturformidling

Fabrik og Bolig, 2020

Kritische Berichte. Zeitschrift für Kunst- und Kulturwissenschaften, 2017

This article examines how contemporary designers (can) rework specific urban spaces in the contex... more This article examines how contemporary designers (can) rework specific urban spaces in the context of climate change. Agendas such as managing storm water events and greening cities gain growing attention and often come with a discourse of architectural newness and technological innovation. Less openly discussed, yet often a major challenge, is how these agendas can be dealt with in existing urban areas with long histories and social complexities. This article discusses the example of the city of Copenhagen, which has an internationally recognized plan for storm water management and celebrated green policies. In particluar, we examine one architecture competition, the Enghave public park redesign, 2014-15, to ask: How do different designers strike a balance between the requirements of adapting to heavy rainfall events, creating ‘more nature’ and other concerns in this existing public space in a historical city district? Using design historian Anne Spirn’s concepts of historically laden ‘natures’ in landscape architecture, we show that there is no straightforward solution to how ‘urban nature’ can be spatially articulated. Rather, the designers of proposals for the redesign of Enghave Park use a broad range of –somewhat ambigous – approaches to combine ‘urban’ and ‘nature’’ in this specific public park. Unpacking these design strategies, their underlying nature concepts and consequenses for the existing park and its margnialized users, we strive to contribute to the growing discourses about climate adaption and the role of nature in cities. In conclusion, we argue that social and political dimensions of the city should not be muted with the discourses of resilience and greening, but be part of wider conversations about how to assemble ‘nature’ and ‘urban' in public spaces.

CRIOS Critique of Spatial Orderings, 2017

How can design critique address what spatial design does? Starting from the concept of criticalit... more How can design critique address what spatial design does? Starting from the concept of criticality this paper proposes to look away from objects and their meanings and instead to engage with what design does here and now. Guided by performance theory and actor-network theory we conducted an experimental workshop with PhD students at the internationally acclaimed public park Superkilen in Copenhagen, Denmark. Using water melons and egg timers some of the students explored what happened when unexpected objects were placed there. Others investigated, represented and questioned what a particular bench does through film, photo collage and twisted architectural drawings. We find that design critique can actualise potential of design work by articulating relationships between people and things. To do so, we propose that the critic actively engages in the particular situation rather than judging or analysing design work from a distance. Designerly and artistic forms of representation can be vital tools of investigation and articulation of such a critique. Working in the mode of criticality can pinpoint what possibilities are at stake in a particular situation, while it also can problematize doings of design in a larger socio-spatial environment and thereby point to critical potential for its future development.

Nordic Journal of Cultural Policy 17 (2/2014), 2014

Why are some parts of the built environment protected as national heritage and others not? Listin... more Why are some parts of the built environment protected as national heritage and others not? Listing is the most restrictive tool of Norwegian and Danish preservation in the built environment and creates a specific version of the past
told through buildings and sites. The heritage authorities in both countries present listing as an instrument to protect a representative sample of all the country’s built structures and environments.
The article examines the role of mass housing complexes, a significant product of the welfare states from the 1950s and onwards, in the practice of listing buildings in Norway and Denmark. We examine why two early mass housing neighbourhoods, Lambertseter in Oslo and Bellahøj in Copenhagen, have been considered worthy of listing, but without being listed as yet. The study shows how not only the official criteria for listing, but also tacit values established in architectural history and economic mechanisms effect contemporary decisions about whether to list mass housing areas. In conclusion, we question the role of the official criteria for listing and instead call for a more open discussion about why and how listing creates national history.

Nordic Journal of Architecture, Nov 2011

Editorial from themed issue on as found as a possible design paradigm. Nordic Journal of Architec... more Editorial from themed issue on as found as a possible design paradigm. Nordic Journal of Architecture 2011.

Landscape Biographies. Geographical, Historical and Archaeological Perspectives on the Production and Transmission of Landscapes. Reenes, H., Kolen, J., Hermands, R. (eds), Amsterdam University Press, May 2015

Abandoned industrial sites are increasingly becoming sites for urban development, forcing the inv... more Abandoned industrial sites are increasingly becoming sites for urban development, forcing the involved actors to decide what is altered, reused, discarded and protected. Surprisingly, while urban space is a major issue contemporary planning and urbanism, the issue is often absent when it comes to assessing existing industrial sites. By way of a case study this article shows that open spaces are an important aspect of industrial sites and that they can potentially be valuable heritage issues and urban figures in the future city. The author argues that bridging knowledge from cultural historical scholarship and design disciplines, can create knowledge about the complex, yet largely unseen, open spaces of industry.

Welcome to the Women and Gender in Architecture Interest Group at the European Architecture Histo... more Welcome to the Women and Gender in Architecture Interest Group at the European Architecture History Network (EAHN) conference in Athens on the 19th June 2024!

The meeting aims to create a curiosity-driven, respectful, and generous forum for all who are interested in questions of women and gender in architecture, cities and landscapes. We will begin by a roundtable meeting specifically for researchers who are doing a PhD, post-doctoral project or any other ‘early career stage’ research (deadline for submitting your interest, February 29, please see attachment for details). We will then continue with a workshop and networking event. The Interest Group is open for anyone –whether you are a specialist in questions of architecture and gender or a curious newcomer to the topic.

Working on gender perspectives as an architectural historian means not only considering a broad range of voices, perspectives, and topics, but also realizing that the very questioning of gender compels us to rethink traditional historiographical methods, theoretical concepts, archival structures, and research approaches. Even the ethical and affective implications of doing research come into question, as do the role, positionality, and responsibility of the historian. These and other are topics we be central to our discussion.

Programme 19th June 2024

1:30 Welcome Luca Csepely-Knorr and Svava Riesto
1:45-3:15 Roundtable with presentations by researchers who are working on PhDs, post-doctoral projects or similar (pls see attached open call). Presentations and discussion.
Workshop: women and gender in architectural histories – a collaborative exploration, open to all who are interested in joining Drinks and networking
3.15-3.30 Break
3.30-4pm Workshop: women and gender in architectural histories – a collaborative exploration, open to all who are interested in joining Drinks and networking
4pm Drinks and networking

Don’t hesitate to contact us if you have questions or want to discuss an idea. Looking very much forward to hearing for you and - even more - to seeing you in Athens!

Best regards,

Luca Csepely-Knorr and Svava Riesto

Welcome to the inaugural seminar of the research project Women in Danish Architecture 1925-1975 –... more Welcome to the inaugural seminar of the research project Women in Danish Architecture 1925-1975 – A new history of gender and practice.

THURSDAY, 12 NOVEMBER 5PM-6.30PM ON ZOOM: https://ucph-ku.zoom.us/j/64927556245
Our new research project investigates the contributions of women to Danish architecture, landscape architecture, and urban planning. We focus on the period from 1925 to 1975, during which the first generations of women entered the design professions in Denmark.
We reveal the hitherto untold stories of the diverse roles these women played in architectural practice and the ways in which they contributed to a more comprehensive architectural history.
In doing so, we promote an understanding that architectural practice is driven by collaborations involving diverse actors rather than sparked by creative leaders. By suggesting ways to write more just histories of twentieth century Danish architecture, we bring forth silenced, alternative realities as well as forms of practice and collaboration behind the built world as we know it.
With presentations by our international research partners, the contributions to this seminar suggest more inclusive, considerate and compassionate ways of writing, collecting, showcasing and conceptualizing the contributions of women to twentieth century architecture, landscape and urban planning.

Best, Svava Riesto and Henriette Steiner

Session at the Association for Critical Heritage Studies Conference 'Futures', 2020

October and November 2020 in Copenhagen. This PhD course invites students from landscape archite... more October and November 2020 in Copenhagen.

This PhD course invites students from landscape architecture, architecture, urbanism, urban planning, heritage studies, geography, cultural studies, urban history, and related fields to exchange knowledge and learn from each other regarding questions of gender in relation to architecture, cities and landscapes.

Pedagogical Formats
The course is structured as a PowerPoint-free zone, with dialogical workshops and shared learning tailored to the needs of the student group as well as to individual development.

The course is organized by Svava Riesto and Henriette Steiner, University of Copenhagen, Landscape architecture and Planning. We are excited to be able to welcome the following guest teachers to the course:

Barbara Penner, Architectural Humanities,
University College London, UK
Meike Schalk, Urban Studies and Urban Theory,
KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden
Despina Stratigakos, Architecture and Gender
Studies, University at Buffalo, USA
Heidi Svenningsen Kajita, Architecture, Landscape
and Planning, University of Copenhagen/Newcastle University, UK

Research colloquium: Constructing Biographies of Welfare Landscapes 7th June Amsterdam

The urban landscapes of post-war welfare states are currently subject to multiple changes. Many o... more The urban landscapes of post-war welfare states are currently subject to multiple changes. Many of these welfare landscapes are associated with conflicting public images, and their local histories and specificities are sometimes weakly investigated.

This seminar delves into different research strategies to study specific urban landscapes as places with dynamic histories, exploring what may be called biographical lenses of inquiry. We welcome young and experienced researchers from multiple disciplines, including landscape and urban studies, critical heritage studies, landscape architecture, architecture and architecture history.

The seminar includes lectures and a workshop in which to exchange and further the participant’s own ongoing research. It is free of charge and no registration is needed.

In this session we are inviting researchers to revisit the landscapes of the late modern city wit... more In this session we are inviting researchers to revisit the landscapes of the late modern city with focus on questions such as: How can post‐war urban landscapes be understood anew in response to contemporary concerns? How can we address the challenges and capacities of landscapes of the post‐war city in new contexts beyond standard narratives? How do we assemble futures for such landscapes and based on which values? The session will take place at the conference Heritage Accross Borders, 1.-6. September 2018, Association of Critical Heritage Studies.

20th Century Society Magazine, 2020

You might expect that Denmark, with its strong welfare state and perceived fondness for all thing... more You might expect that Denmark, with its strong welfare state and perceived fondness for all things modern, would be eager to list its examples of post-war publicly-funded housing. In fact, this is far from the case: very little such housing is listed, and even that does not represent the majority of dwellings that were built in the welfare state. Presenting an analysis of what post-war dwellings in Denmark are listed (and which are not), the article discusses some of the underlying historiographic assumptions and sets of values that the listing practice of post-war dwellings silently represents. It shows that listing of post-war housing seems to rely on a canonical perception of architecture, listing single-family housing by famous architects and thereby creating a very narrow history of the dwelling conditions of a cultural elite. We argue that this is in contrast with the official aim of listing, which is to represent the societal development, including people's living conditions.
In conclusion, we call for a public debate about the purpose of listing and its role in society. As a historiographic practice, listing buildings can create an understanding of the past that gives voice to groups previously under-represented in historical and architectural debate. Whatever its purpose, if listing is to remain relevant in a democratic welfare society, it must become an inclusive, self-reflexive and transparent practice whose values and political implications are openly discussed. In such a discussion, we believe that discussion across the practices of various countries is valuable.

Interview with artist Monika Gora about her project “How Much for a Tree” (With Gunilla Badolin) ... more Interview with artist Monika Gora about her project “How Much for a Tree” (With Gunilla Badolin) and the roles of trees in contemporary cities.

JoLA - Journal on Landscape Architecture, 2009

Constructing Criticism: Methods for Studying what Spatial Design does , 2016

In recent years, we can observe an increased interest in the performative capabilities of spatial... more In recent years, we can observe an increased interest in the performative capabilities of spatial design work; how it affects users and usages, and the ways it transforms existing territorial conditions. Relational studies of what spatial design 'does' are increasingly informing strategic planning, as well as architectural, urban and landscape design. New methods, investigative techniques and forms of representation are being developed to account for these complex performative qualities of spatial design. Moreover, explorations of the performative capabilities of architecture, landscape architecture, urban design and planning offer a potentially rich field of criticism. Representations of what design 'does' problematise simplistic readings of a design project as sheer physical form. Models, drawings and texts have the capacity to shed light on the complex dynamism between urban prac ces and material realities, and thereby place the design work in a new frame of reference. This 5-day PhD course brings together international experts and PhD students to explore new methods for studying what spatial design 'does'. The course will draw on two influential theoretical frameworks for relational studies; performance theory from art and cultural studies and actor-network theory from the field of science and technology studies. These new theoretical frameworks not only offer new value systems from which design work can be assessed, but also invite us to critically reflect upon the ways that we construct criticism. International experts will introduce theoretical frameworks and methods for conducting relational studies of spatial design work. PhD students will receive feedback on a design critique in relation to their own PhD research. In a design-driven, experimental workshop convened by architect and researcher Rana Haddad from the American University of Beirut, we will collaboratively carry out a relational study on an internationally acclaimed new urban space: Superkilen in Copenhagen.