Rechtskulturen
2011/ 2012

Esra Akcan

Housing Laws and Urban Renewal: IBA’ 84/87

Esra Akcan is an Assistant Professor in the University of Illinois at Chicago. She received her architecture degree from Middle East Technical University, Ankara, and her PhD and postdoctoral degrees from Columbia University, New York. Her dissertation "Modernity in Translation: Early 20th Century German-Turkish Exchanges in Land Settlement and Residential Culture" (2005) explored a theory of translation in analyzing the tensions and potentials of intertwined histories, and focused on the early twentieth century German-Turkish exchanges in land settlement and residential culture. Akcan taught history-theory classes and architectural design studios at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Columbia University, the New School for Social Research, the Pratt Institute, New York, and the Middle East Technical University, Ankara. She received awards and fellowships from the Clark Institute, Getty Research Institute, Canadian Center for Architecture, Graham Foundation, Columbia University, Mellon Foundation, the DAAD, Kinne and KRESS/ARIT.

Akcan''s English publications include scholarly essays in the periodicals New German Critique, Journal of Architecture, Perspecta, AD, Architectural Theory Review, Centropa, World Literature Today, and in the anthologies Cold War Kitchen, Travel Space Architecture, Modern Architecture and the Mediterranean. She has been a contributor to the Turkish journals Arredamento Mimarlık, Cogito, Varlık, Sanat Dünyamız, XXI, Domus m, Mimarlık, Defter, Toplum Bilim. Akcan guest-edited a special issue on globalization for Domus m, on German-Turkish relations for Centropa, and published a bi-lingual illustrated fiction book (Land)Fill Istanbul. Twelve Scenarios for a Global City. Her translation of her doctoral dissertation into Turkish, Çeviride Modern Olan, was published in 2009. Akcan''s book Architecture in Translation will be published this year, as well as her book on Turkey which she co-authored for the Modern Architectures in History series (with Sibel Bozdoğan).

Housing Laws and Urban Renewal: IBA’ 84/87

As a fellow of Rechtskulturen, Akcan will be working on her next book project "Urban Renewal and its Discontents: IBA 1984–87."