Erik Wegerhoff
Curriculum vitae
Erik Wegerhoff (b.1974) is Senior Lecturer in the History and Theory of Architecture and a journalist for the Schweizerische Bauzeitung – TEC21. Apart from the car as the strangely mobile counterpart to immobile architecture, which is the focus of his current book, he has an interest in roads and paths, literary travels from the Grand Tour until today, appropriation and reuse, and in contemporary architectural criticism. Currently, Erik is restoring a 300-year-old stone house in Italy together with the architect Laura Wollenhaupt, following criteria of sustainability.
Erik studied architecture at the Technische Universität Berlin with a year abroad at the Architectural Association in London. He served as a fixed-term lecturer at Habitat Unit, TU Berlin, followed by a three-months Grand Tour along the 18th-century route from Munich to Sicily by Vespa. Doctoral degree at ETH Zurich, supervised by Andreas Tönnesmann, on the reinterpretations und reuses of the Colosseum after antiquity, supported by grants of the Bibliotheca Hertziana, Rome, and the Gerda Henkel Foundation. 2010–2017, fixed-term lecturer at the Chair of Theory and History of Architecture, Art and Design (Dietrich Erben) at Technische Universität Munich. 2012–2013, postdoctoral fellow of the Centre allemand d’histore de l’art in Paris, where he began his research project on the automobile in the architectural discourse of the 20th century, in summer 2019 supported by a fellowship of the German Historical Institute in Washington, D.C. 2017-2021, Erik was senior assistant at the Chair of the History and Theory of Architecture (Maarten Delbeke) at ETH Zürich. In summer 2021 he finished his second book (Habilitation) «Architecture and the Automobile: Speeding Up, Shiftung, Slowing Down».
Erik has published several books with the reknowned German publisher Wagenbach. “Das Kolosseum: bewundert, bewohnt, ramponiert” – the rewritten dissertation on the Colosseum – was awarded second place on the best non-fiction books list of the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” and Norddeutscher Rundfunk in April 2012. Articles in international journals and book chapters. Numerous architecture crits, mostly in the German “Baumeister” and the Swiss «Schweizerischen Bauzeitung – TEC21». Recent publications comprise the volume “Shifts in Perspective: Architects’ Travels to Italy in Modern and Contemporary Times” (co-edited with Kai Kappel), a critique of Herzog & de Meuron's Roche Tower 2 in Basle published in «Schweizerischen Bauzeitung – TEC21», and a review of the exhibition of the 1970s architecture collective "Missing Link" at the MAK in Vienna for Drawing Matter. An essay on parallels between the Strada Novissima on the Venice Architecture Biennale of 1980 and the "Spielstrasse" (traffic calming zone) introduced in Germany in the same year has recently been published as part of the current issue of Cloud-Cuckoo-Land/Wolkenkucksheim 41 (2021): Identifications of the Postmodern.
Video of Erik's inaugural lecture as senior lecturer (Privatdozent) at ETH Zürich "Architecture and the Automobile: Speeding Up, Shifting, Slowing Down" held on 5 October 2021 in the underground parking garage of ETH Hönggerberg.
Erik studied architecture at the Technische Universität Berlin with a year abroad at the Architectural Association in London. He served as a fixed-term lecturer at Habitat Unit, TU Berlin, followed by a three-months Grand Tour along the 18th-century route from Munich to Sicily by Vespa. Doctoral degree at ETH Zurich, supervised by Andreas Tönnesmann, on the reinterpretations und reuses of the Colosseum after antiquity, supported by grants of the Bibliotheca Hertziana, Rome, and the Gerda Henkel Foundation. 2010–2017, fixed-term lecturer at the Chair of Theory and History of Architecture, Art and Design (Dietrich Erben) at Technische Universität Munich. 2012–2013, postdoctoral fellow of the Centre allemand d’histore de l’art in Paris, where he began his research project on the automobile in the architectural discourse of the 20th century, in summer 2019 supported by a fellowship of the German Historical Institute in Washington, D.C. 2017-2021, Erik was senior assistant at the Chair of the History and Theory of Architecture (Maarten Delbeke) at ETH Zürich. In summer 2021 he finished his second book (Habilitation) «Architecture and the Automobile: Speeding Up, Shiftung, Slowing Down».
Erik has published several books with the reknowned German publisher Wagenbach. “Das Kolosseum: bewundert, bewohnt, ramponiert” – the rewritten dissertation on the Colosseum – was awarded second place on the best non-fiction books list of the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” and Norddeutscher Rundfunk in April 2012. Articles in international journals and book chapters. Numerous architecture crits, mostly in the German “Baumeister” and the Swiss «Schweizerischen Bauzeitung – TEC21». Recent publications comprise the volume “Shifts in Perspective: Architects’ Travels to Italy in Modern and Contemporary Times” (co-edited with Kai Kappel), a critique of Herzog & de Meuron's Roche Tower 2 in Basle published in «Schweizerischen Bauzeitung – TEC21», and a review of the exhibition of the 1970s architecture collective "Missing Link" at the MAK in Vienna for Drawing Matter. An essay on parallels between the Strada Novissima on the Venice Architecture Biennale of 1980 and the "Spielstrasse" (traffic calming zone) introduced in Germany in the same year has recently been published as part of the current issue of Cloud-Cuckoo-Land/Wolkenkucksheim 41 (2021): Identifications of the Postmodern.
Video of Erik's inaugural lecture as senior lecturer (Privatdozent) at ETH Zürich "Architecture and the Automobile: Speeding Up, Shifting, Slowing Down" held on 5 October 2021 in the underground parking garage of ETH Hönggerberg.
