Contact
Leopoldstr. 11a, 4. OG, 421
80802 Munich
Room:
428
Email:
kim.forster@manchester.ac.uk
Kim Förster is an architectural historian, usually researching and teaching as a Senior Lecturer in Architectural Studies at the University of Manchester and member of the Manchester Architecture Research Group (MARG). Having a background in English and American Studies, Geography and Pedgagogy, he previously, from 2016 to 2018, was Associate Director of Research at the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montréal. His work focuses on knowledge and cultural production, as well as institutional and environmental history, with particular attention to issues of building transition in terms of the social metabolism, practices and policies of energy and material flows, and ways that they are debated and mediated. He is author of “Building Institution” (transcript, 2024) and “Undisciplined Knowing. Writing Architectural History through the Environment” (CCA, 2022), and editor of the series “Environmental Histories of Architecture” (CCA, 2022). His current research project investigates a global history of cement. More information be found on his website.
Selected Publications:
- “From ‘White Coal’ to Energy Futures: The Palimpsest of Swiss Energy Landscapes.” ISUP Papers, no. 1b, April 2025.
- “A Gray Castle”, e-flux Architecture, 1 December 2023, “Accumulations.” (also published in e-flux Index #1, 2024, 244–255).
- “The Kiln.” In Solarities. Elemental Encounters and Refractions, ed. by Jeff Diamanti, Cymene Howe, Amelia Moore. Goleta: punctum books, 2023, 229–258.
- Undisciplined Knowing: Writing Architectural History through the Environment. Montreal: CCA, 2022.
- ed. Environmental Histories of Architecture, Montreal: CCA, 2022.
- “Triangular Stories. Cement as Cheap Commodity, Critical Building Material, and a Seemingly Harmless Climate Killer.” In Beyond Concrete. Strategies for a Post-fossil Baukultur, ed. by FHNW – Institut Architektur, A. Helle, B. Lenherr. Zurich: Triest Verlag, 2022, 35–65.