Juliane Richter
Associated Researcher | Contemporary History and Archive

Since April 2022 Juliane Richter has been an associated doctoral student in the Freigeist project “Conquering (with) Concrete: German Construction Companies as Global Players in Local Contexts”, funded by the Volkswagen Foundation.

She is an art historian and journalist and is doing her doctorate in the DFG Research Training Group “Identity and Heritage” at the Bauhaus University Weimar on topics related to the transnational circulation of architecture and knowledge between the GDR and Cuba.

Her master's thesis, which focused on an inner-city prefabricated housing area in Leipzig, was published in 2015 and awarded the Theodor Fischer Prize by the Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte, Munich. She volunteered at the magazine of the Association of German Architects “der architekt” and initiated and curated the arts and architecture festival RASTER : BETON in the large housing estate Grünau in Leipzig in 2016. Her interests include architectural history and theory in the 20th and 21st centuries, critical urban research, monument preservation and contemporary history.

Projects

Ongoing Third-party Funded Projects

Global construction companies impact our futures. Beyond the edifices and infrastructures they construct, they also fundamentally influence governmental development aid policies, or dislocate people to build a new dam, for example. Yet the role of these major global players and their persistent presence in different world regions has barely been reflected upon. Our project investigates how major German construction companies conquered markets and spaces, thereby cementing their presence in different regions of the Global South, and it will trace the footprints left behind, long after the dust of the construction sites settled. It draws on the observation that it is impossible to fully understand the complexity of the built environment in these regions without acknowledging and analysing the role of construction companies such as HOCHTIEF AG or Bilfinger Berger as actors, stakeholders, transnational legal entities and major driving forces in the processes of globalised construction business. more info

Selected Publications by Year

2022
Richter, J. (2022). Eine „komplizierte politisch-ideologische Situation“ auf der Baustelle: Was ein Bericht zum Zementwerk Nuevitas über Sozialismuskonzepte in Kuba und der DDR aussagt. In A. Butter, & T. Flierl (Eds.), Der Architekturexport der DDR: Zwischen Sansibar und Halensee (pp. 178-189). (Gegenstand und Raum, Neue Folge; No. 3). Lukas.
2015
Richter, J., & Weise, K. (2015). DDR-Architektur in der Leipziger Innenstadt. (Forschungen zum baukulturellen Erbe der DDR; Vol. 5). Bauhaus-Universitätsverlag.

Selected Publications by Type

Monograph
Richter, J., & Weise, K. (2015). DDR-Architektur in der Leipziger Innenstadt. (Forschungen zum baukulturellen Erbe der DDR; Vol. 5). Bauhaus-Universitätsverlag.
Contribution to Anthology
Richter, J. (2022). Eine „komplizierte politisch-ideologische Situation“ auf der Baustelle: Was ein Bericht zum Zementwerk Nuevitas über Sozialismuskonzepte in Kuba und der DDR aussagt. In A. Butter, & T. Flierl (Eds.), Der Architekturexport der DDR: Zwischen Sansibar und Halensee (pp. 178-189). (Gegenstand und Raum, Neue Folge; No. 3). Lukas.

Talks

2024
Researching and Building from, for, and within the "Socialist Tropics". Exploring Networks, Institutionalization, and the Role of the Institute for "Tropen- und Auslandsbau" in the GDR

Tropenbau. Building the Tropics into the Curriculum

January/08/2024
TU Darmstadt, Darmstadt, Germany

2022
Export of Cement Plants from GDR to Cuba. Case Study of Nuevitas

Producción de infraestructura

November/03/2022
Universidad Torcuato Di Tella, Universidad Nacional de Quilmes, Buenos Aires, Argentina