News and Events

Ksenia Litvinenko, an Associate Postdoctoral Researcher at the IRS Erkner, has begun her new position as a Walter Benjamin Postdoctoral Fellow on December 1, 2024. Her project, titled “Accommodating Extractivism: Mobile Architecture and Rotational Urbanism in Western Siberia, 1980–1992,” has been awarded funding by the DFG for a two-year term. more info

The example of construction shows very directly how people interact with their physical environment. However, the social sciences and humanities have difficulties in grasping this interaction conceptually and conceptually. A group of IRS researchers has now presented an approach that places building materials at the centre of research into the history of construction and architecture. more info

A Research Group at the IRS has examined the international activities of German construction companies in the 20th century. An important result of this research has now been published: a database that allows detailed research into offshore construction projects by German companies. more info

Leibniz Labs are a new tool of research organization. Their aim is to bring together the wide-ranging knowledge of the participating Leibniz Institutes in order to contribute jointly to the solution of pressing social problems and to make this knowledge accessible to a wide range of target groups. As part of the first funding round, the Leibniz Association has now selected three labs for funding. The IRS is participating in a lab that investigates how society deals with unexpected, fundamental upheavals. more info

What role did architecture play for the societies of countries in sub-Saharan Africa after they became independent? The Canadian Centre for Architecture coordinated a research project on this topic, to which IRS architecture historian Monika Monika Motylińska contributed. The volume "Fugitive Archives" shows the results. more info