Cathelijne Nuijsink
Curriculum vitae
Dr. Cathelijne Nuijsink holds a BSc and MSc in Architecture from the Delft University of Technology, an MSc in Architecture from The University of Tokyo, and an MA and a PhD (2017) in East Asian Languages and Civilizations, both from the University of Pennsylvania, USA. Between 2018 and 2021, she was a Horizon 2020-funded Marie Sklodowska-Curie postdoctoral research fellow at the Institute for the History and Theory of Architecture, ETH Zürich, where she conducted the research project, “Architecture as a Cross-Cultural Exchange: The Shinkenchiku Residential Design Competition, 1965–2017 [No. 797002]”. This study uses the notion of “contact zones” to map the cross-cultural character of architecture, scrutinising a long-running international ideas competition in Japan. The project’s major outcomes included the organising of the exhibition “Call for Lost Entries: The Shinkenchiku Residential Design Competition, 1965–2020”, and the development of a website, www.callforlostentries.com.
Currently, Nuijsink is a Senior Lecturer at the Chair of the History and Theory of Urban Design, where she is developing and teaching research-based seminars, conducting primary research, supervising students, and leading the “Methods” research track. Her research engages with the development of new historiographic methods that enable histories of architecture in the latter half of the twentieth century to be written in a way that is more dynamic, inclusive and polyvocal. Moving on from the idea that architectural histories are all about descriptions of “static” buildings designed by single architects, her histories instead centre on dynamic “encounters” between architects and non-architects in which a productive cross-cultural and interdisciplinary exchange of ideas takes place. In addition to her role as Senior Lecturer at ETH Zürich, during the academic year 2022–2023 Nuijsink is a Postgraduate Associate in The History, Theory and Criticism of Architecture and Art (HTC) program at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Using the opportunity afforded by academic mobility, at MIT she is strengthening further the potential of contact zones as a new historiographic method with the research project “Unlocking the ‘Contact Zone’: Toward a New Historiography of Architecture”, which focuses on multidisciplinary contact zones.
Nuijsink’s peer-reviewed papers have appeared in multiple journals, including “Architectural Theory Review”, “ABE Journal”, “gta Papers”, “Nordic Journal for Architectural Research”, “Interiors: Design/Architecture/Culture”, “Footprint Architectural Theory Review”, and “Revista Arquitectura”. She is also co-editor of a special issue of “Architecture and Culture” entitled “The Architecture Exhibition Operating as Cross-Cultural Contact Zone”. Book chapters include those in the peer-reviewed publications “Rethinking Global Modernism: Architectural Historiography and the Postcolonial” (New York: Routledge, 2021), “Activism at Home: Architects Dwelling between Politics, Aesthetics and Resistance” (Belin: Jovis, 2022), “The Hybrid Practitioner: Building, Teaching, Researching Architecture” (Leuven: KU Leuven Press, 2022), and “Agadir – Building the Modern Afropolis” (Zurich: Park Books, 2022).
Nuijsink is also active in presenting her research at different venues. To date, she has delivered papers at the (bi)annual conferences of the Society of Architectural Historians (SAH), the European Architectural Historians Network (EAHN), the Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand (SAHANZ), and the Architectural Humanities Research Association (AHRA), among other venues. She has also convened a series of lectures on the topics of Gender and Urban Sociology as part of the seminar “The City Lived - Unlocking a Multidisciplinary Discourse” (Spring 2021), and co-chaired “The Architecture Exhibition as Contact Zone: Towards a Historiography of Cross-Cultural Exchanges”, a session at the SAH 2021 Virtual Conference.
In April 2023, she will co-chair the session “Writing Alternative Histories of Disaster Relief: Architecture and Humanitarianism” at the SAH 2023 Annual Conference in Montréal.
www.cathelijnenuijsink.com
Currently, Nuijsink is a Senior Lecturer at the Chair of the History and Theory of Urban Design, where she is developing and teaching research-based seminars, conducting primary research, supervising students, and leading the “Methods” research track. Her research engages with the development of new historiographic methods that enable histories of architecture in the latter half of the twentieth century to be written in a way that is more dynamic, inclusive and polyvocal. Moving on from the idea that architectural histories are all about descriptions of “static” buildings designed by single architects, her histories instead centre on dynamic “encounters” between architects and non-architects in which a productive cross-cultural and interdisciplinary exchange of ideas takes place. In addition to her role as Senior Lecturer at ETH Zürich, during the academic year 2022–2023 Nuijsink is a Postgraduate Associate in The History, Theory and Criticism of Architecture and Art (HTC) program at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Using the opportunity afforded by academic mobility, at MIT she is strengthening further the potential of contact zones as a new historiographic method with the research project “Unlocking the ‘Contact Zone’: Toward a New Historiography of Architecture”, which focuses on multidisciplinary contact zones.
Nuijsink’s peer-reviewed papers have appeared in multiple journals, including “Architectural Theory Review”, “ABE Journal”, “gta Papers”, “Nordic Journal for Architectural Research”, “Interiors: Design/Architecture/Culture”, “Footprint Architectural Theory Review”, and “Revista Arquitectura”. She is also co-editor of a special issue of “Architecture and Culture” entitled “The Architecture Exhibition Operating as Cross-Cultural Contact Zone”. Book chapters include those in the peer-reviewed publications “Rethinking Global Modernism: Architectural Historiography and the Postcolonial” (New York: Routledge, 2021), “Activism at Home: Architects Dwelling between Politics, Aesthetics and Resistance” (Belin: Jovis, 2022), “The Hybrid Practitioner: Building, Teaching, Researching Architecture” (Leuven: KU Leuven Press, 2022), and “Agadir – Building the Modern Afropolis” (Zurich: Park Books, 2022).
Nuijsink is also active in presenting her research at different venues. To date, she has delivered papers at the (bi)annual conferences of the Society of Architectural Historians (SAH), the European Architectural Historians Network (EAHN), the Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand (SAHANZ), and the Architectural Humanities Research Association (AHRA), among other venues. She has also convened a series of lectures on the topics of Gender and Urban Sociology as part of the seminar “The City Lived - Unlocking a Multidisciplinary Discourse” (Spring 2021), and co-chaired “The Architecture Exhibition as Contact Zone: Towards a Historiography of Cross-Cultural Exchanges”, a session at the SAH 2021 Virtual Conference.
In April 2023, she will co-chair the session “Writing Alternative Histories of Disaster Relief: Architecture and Humanitarianism” at the SAH 2023 Annual Conference in Montréal.
www.cathelijnenuijsink.com
