«Organizing Architectures» is an interdisciplinary DFG-funded research training group that, together with several universities and research institutions in Hesse, aims to promote innovative qualification work by excellent young researchers.
This highly interdisciplinary and international study and research program enables multi-perspective work that addresses the tension between architectural production and social processes. How do built or planned structures shape (public) spaces and social dynamics? How do social processes and discourses materialize in architecture? And how does this then impact society? The basis of this work is a broad understanding of the concept of architecture, which includes not only individual buildings but also urban ensembles and infrastructures, and architectures as discursive, symbolic, and built spaces of organizational structures.
Research fellows are accompanied by an intensive support structure, regular colloquia for exchange, and a varied workshop program. The diverse range of events offered by the fellowship and the equally diverse group of applicants provide the research fellows the ideal conditions for building broad, international professional networks. In November 2024 the first cohort, consisting of twelve doctoral students and two postdocs, began its work, and a second cohort will begin in the autumn of 2026.
Public lectures are regularly held to enable the broader public to participate in the research content. Various publication formats—including a publication series, a blog, documentaries, written and image essays, and videos—guarantee easy accessibility to the projects and research findings of the graduate school.
Participating institutions
- Goethe University Frankfurt
- Technical University of Darmstadt
- University of Kassel
- Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory
Disciplines involved
- Architecture
- Architectural History
- Architectural Theory
- History
- Urban Development
- Media Studies
- Art History
- Human Geography
- Political Science
- Legal History
- Sociology
Cooperation partners
- Deutsches Architekturmuseum
Profile of the Graduate School
The “Organizing Architectures” program understands buildings as symptoms and tools of modern institutions, networks, and discourses. It is based on the fundamental assumption that the study of social orders cannot be separated from architectural formations and that these, as well as the respective architectures, emerge through specific, complex processes of social negotiation. Accordingly, modernity is understood as a processual structure consisting of organized and of organizing architectures.
An understanding of architecture in which buildings are both products and impulses of collective processes takes into account the fact that complex social processes materialize, embody, and develop symptomatically within architecture. On the other hand, built or planned structures themselves organize social spaces, which in turn influence the reception and projection of architecture.
“Organizing Architectures” thus transcends the current state of architectural research in both content and methodology. The program makes a significant contribution to the academic reorientation and internationalization of the rapidly growing field of Architectural Humanities, which is dedicated to the investigation of historical and cultural architectural processes and practices, drawing on diverse and interdisciplinary methodological approaches and media.
The central research idea of “Organizing Architectures” is to examine this tension between organized architectures and organizing architectures. In doing so, the program shifts the focus from dominant architectural concepts and devices (the creative subject, the individual artistic work, the built structure as the culmination of planning) to an examination of their processual conditions. In this context, organization and collectivity enter into a tense interrelationship with attributions of individualized responsibilities and powers.
The relevance and topicality of these themes are particularly evident in view of current projects such as the linear city of Neom in Saudi Arabia, the relocation of megacities such as Manila and Jakarta into planned metropolises, or Elon Musk’s plans for a colony on Mars. These (sometimes escapist) planning fantasies reflect current crises (economic, political, and climatic), but they do not provide sustainable answers. The research group therefore focuses on architecture—in view of present-day challenges and from a decidedly interdisciplinary perspective—as spaces of dynamic negotiation. Using modernism as a historical framework, it examines the contentious coexistence of collective and individual design power in planning processes. In addition to providing a fresh perspective on modernist architecture, it provides important insights and contributes to raising awareness among scientists and architects regarding planning decisions and their social implications.