Team
team - online group photo
Benjamin Eckel (M.Sc.)
Research Assistant I History and Theory of Architecture
- Fachgebiet
- Geschichte und Theorie der Architektur
- Site
- Gottschalkstraße 24
34127 Kassel
- Room
- Gottschalk 24, Torhaus B, Raum 2110
CV
Since the 16th of October 2020 Benjamin Eckel works as a research assistant at the Univerity of Kassel. Before that he studied architecture at the TU Darmstadt but switched to History of Art at Marburg University. Afterwards he studied (architectural) Heritage Management in Halle (Saale) and Dessau, which he completed with his thesis “Das Wohn- und Geschäftshaus Rahnestraße 10 in Zeitz”. So far, he worked at the DDK – Foto Marburg and at the State Office for the Preservation of Historical Monuments in Hesse and Saxony-Anhalt.
His main research interest is the architecture of the 20th century, especially post-war-architecture in relation to the historic context. The handling of historic buildings and of urban structures while building in the post-war-era as well as the development of cities in this time in general with focus on the GDR is of great interest for him. In his research, aspects such as the political intentions of architecture as well as the social and economic components are also included. While in his position as a research assistant he plans a dissertation in this particular field of research.
Publications
Eckel, Benjamin: Das Wohn- und Geschäftshaus Rahnestraße 10 in Zeitz, in: Saale-Unstrut-Verein für Kulturgeschichte und Naturkunde e.V. (Hrsg.): Saale-Unstrut-Jahrbuch. Jahrbuch für Kulturgeschichte und Naturkunde der Saale-Unstrut-Region, 27. Jahrgang, Halle (Saale) 2021, p. 62-69.
Eckel, Benjamin: Die Stadt als Ganzes. Die Ensemblebauweise und die Komplexgebiete, in: Kegler, Harald; Kummer, Constanze; Eckel, Benjamin: Stadtwende Halle, Ausstellungskatalog der Stadtwende Halle Ausstellung im Stadtmuseum Halle (Saale), Kassel 2022, p. 58-65.
Eckel, Benjamin; Constanze Kummer: Die Wende in der Stadt. Bürgerschaftliches Engagement und stadtplanerische Prozesse in Halberstadt und Meißen, in: Breßler, Jana et al. (Hg.): Stadtwende. Bürgerengagement und Altstadterneuerung in der DDR und Ostdeutschland, Berlin 2022, p. 224–234.
Vorträge
"Die Platte als Chamäleon? Variable Plattenbauten im innerstädtischen Kontext in den 1980er Jahren", 17. Werkstattgespräch at IRS Erkner (19.05.-20.05.2022), in collaboration with Constanze Kummer
Aktuelles / Forschung
Urban planning, new construction and monument preservation in Halle between 1949 and 1990
Dissertation topic Benjamin Eckel
The city of Halle (Saale) survived the Second World War almost unscathed like almost no other city of its size and remained characterised by a high stock of old buildings. This presented the newly founded state of the GDR with new tasks to master. While in cities like Magdeburg the inner cities were rebuilt according to new construction and planning principles, in Halle a way of dealing with the historic city had to be found. Even the chemical workers' city of Halle-Neustadt, begun in the 1960s as a "dream of the 1920s", has to be understood and contextualised under these special conditions of the old city.
The dissertation does not only want to illuminate individual urban planning solutions such as the complex areas researched by Angermann, but aims above all to consider the inner city as a field of experimentation in the GDR. As a workplace of the Institute for the Preservation of Historical Monuments and a place of very active city architects, as well as a city that was particularly strongly shaped by civic engagement in the 1980s, a unique institutional and structural structure emerged here.
Scope
Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter
Fachgebiet Geschichte und Theorie der Architektur
Biografie und Curriculum Vitae
Education
2014-2015 – study of Architecture (B.Sc.), Technische Universität Darmstadt
2015-2018 – study of Art History and Media Sciences (B.A.), Philipps-Universität Marburg
2018-2020 – study of Historic Preservation (M.Sc.), Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg in cooperation with Hochschule Anhalt, Dessau
Employments
06.03.2017-16.04.2017 – Intern at Deutsches Dokumentationszentrum für Kunstgeschichte – Foto Marburg, Marburg
15.08.2017-14.08.2018 – Student Assistant at Landesamt für Denkmalpflege Hessen, Marburg
01.01.2018-30.09.2018 – Student Assistant at Deutsches Dokumentationszentrum für Kunstgeschichte – Foto Marburg, Marburg
01.11.2018-30.06.2020 – Student Assistant at Landesamt für Denkmalpflege Sachsen-Anhalt, Halle (Saale)
01.03.2019-31.10.2019 – Student Assistant at Hochschule Anhalt, Dessau
01.12.2019-31.12.2020 – Student Assistant at the Institute of Art History at the Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale)
Since 16.10.2020 – Scientific Researcher and Ph.D.-student at the Insitute for History and Theory of Architecture at the Universität Kassel, Kassel
Since 01.03.2021 – Scientific Researcher in the project "Stadtwende" (in collaboration with TU Kaiserslautern, Bauhaus-Universität Weimar and IRS Erkner)
Since 01.06.2021 – Scientific Researcher in the project "Second World, Second Sex" at the Universität Kassel
Summer schools
29.06.2019-08.07.2019 – Summer school „Wooden Restoration“ at UNESCO-site Kizhi Pogost, Russia
15.07.2019-26.07.2019 – Summer school „Sharing Heritage – Sharing Work – Sharing Community“, Deutsches Fachwerkzentrum Quedlinburg, project in Erxleben
Fellows
Nikolay Erofeev is an architectural historian whose work focuses on socialist architecture and urban planning. His research looks at mass housing, using it as a lens with which to explore various facets of socialist society – such as architectural aspects of prefabrication systems, the analysis of labor relations, technical assistance projects in the Global South and the late-socialist destinies of avant-garde projects. In his book manuscript, ‘Experiment in concrete: Diversity and Debate in the Design of Soviet Housing, 1955-1990,’ he explores the understudied architectural story of the ‘bureaucratic modernism’ of prefabricated housing. In contrast to a rather simplistic view of standardized housing as an ‘end of architecture’ and a complete takeover of the profession by construction experts, the book reconstructs a vibrant, complex and uneven history, as the housing drive became central for the formation of late-Soviet design culture, construction industry and urban sociology.
Erofeev received his D.Phil (PhD) in History from the University of Oxford in 2020 and his specialist degree in the History of Art from Moscow State University in 2014. Erofeev previously had fellowships at the Department of Urban Studies at the University of Basel and at the Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia at New York University. Erofeev also had academic appointments at Manchester Metropolitan University where he taught Master of Architecture dissertations. Erofeev’s fellowship at the University of Kassel is funded by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Research Grant. His research was previously also supported by Hill Foundation and the Swiss Government Excellence scholarships, among others. Erofeev published on the history of socialist architecture in edited volumes and peer-review journals.
Publications
N. Erofeev and Ł. Stanek, ‘Concerns of multilateral socialist assistance to Mongolia during the Cold War’ in M. Motylinska, A. Butter, C. Bernhardt (eds.) A. Between Solidarity and Economic Constraints (De Gruyter, 2022) [forthcoming]
N. Erofeev and Ł. Stanek, ‘Integrate, Adapt, Collaborate: Comecon Architecture in Socialist Mongolia’ ABE Journal 19 (2021), DOI: 10.4000/abe.12604
N. Erofeev ‘Review: Moscow Monumental: Soviet Skyscrapers and Urban Life in Stalin's Capital, By Katherine Zubovich’ Social History, 46/3 (2021), p.336-338.
Erofeev, N. ‘Cybernetics & Standardization: Revisiting a Soviet Vision for Better Urbanism’ Strelka MAG (04.10.2021).
N. Erofeev ‘The I-464 Housing Delivery System: technological transfers from France to Moscow, from Moscow to Alma-Ata, from Alma-Ata to Havana’ Project Russia, 96 (2021), p. 239-64.
N. Erofeev 'The I-464 Housing Delivery System: A Tool for Urban Modernisation in the Socialist World and Beyond' Fabrications, 29/2 (2019), doi:10.1080/10331867.2019.1611255
N. Erofeev and M. Sapunova, 'Urban Standard and Norm and Their (Post)-Socialist Transformation', Urban Studies and Practices, 3/4 (2018), pp. 7-11
Student assistants
Elina Amann supports the project "Second World-Second Sex" and the project-related website "Women Building Socialism".
Antonia Heesen supports the entire department through various assignments.
Andreas Panagiotopoulos supports the Office for International Affairs.
Philip Stöcker supports the work linked to the lecture GdgU (Geschichte der gebauten Umwelt).