Esra Akcan

Esra Akcan is Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Architecture and board member at the Institute for Comparative Modernities. Akcan's research on modern and contemporary architecture and urbanism foregrounds the intertwined histories of Europe, West Asia, and Northeast Africa and offers new ways to understand architecture's role in global, social, and environmental justice. She has written extensively on critical and postcolonial theory, racism, immigration, reparations and transitional justice, architectural photography, translation, neoliberalism, and global history. Her book Architecture in Translation: Germany, Turkey and the Modern House (Duke University Press, 2012) offers a new way to understand the global movement of architecture that extends the notion of translation beyond language to visual fields. It advocates a commitment to a new culture of translatability from below and in multiple directions for cosmopolitan ethics and global justice. Turkey: Modern Architectures in History (Reaktion/Chicago University Press, 2012, with Sibel Bozdoğan) is part of a series that aims at an inclusive survey of modern world architecture and is the first volume in any language to cover the entire 20th century in Turkey. Open Architecture: Migration, Citizenship and the Urban Renewal of Berlin-Kreuzberg by IBA-1984/87 (Birkhäuser/De Gruyter Academic Press, 2018) defines open architecture as the translation of a new ethic of welcoming into the design process. It exemplifies formal, programmatic, and procedural steps towards open architecture during the urban renewal of Berlin's immigrant neighborhood by giving voice not only to the established and understudied architects who were invited to build public housing here but also to noncitizen residents. Abolish Human Bans: Intertwined Histories of Architecture (CCA, 2022) builds on her theory of architectural translation to construct an activist gesture against the racist anti-immigration policies of ruling powers. Her coedited book Art and Architecture of Migration and Discrimination (Routledge, 2023, with Iftikhar Dadi) shows the scope of diverse artistic media that responded to the Partitions and compulsory mass migrations of the twentieth century, as well as the Muslim diasporas in Europe. Her book Right-to-Heal: Resettler Nationalism and Architecture after Conflicts and Disasters (Duke University Press, 2025) explores architecture's role in healing societies after conflicts and disasters by discussing buildings and spaces in relation to transitional justice and energy transition. Currently, she is writing A History of the World made by Modern Architecture.

Akcan delivers lectures globally and participates in exhibitions occasionally by carrying her practice beyond writing to visual media, such as her exhibitions on Landfill Istanbul and Open Architecture. She received multiple awards and fellowships for her publications, such as those from Cornell University (Provost, Einaudi Center for International Studies, Mui Ho Center for Cities), Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies at Harvard University, Graham Foundation (three times grantee), Canadian Center for Architecture (2 times scholar), American Academy in Berlin, UIC, Institute for Advanced Studies in Berlin, Clark Institute, Getty Research Institute, CAA, Mellon Foundation, DAAD and KRESS/ARIT.

Akcan completed her architecture degree at the Middle East Technical University in Turkey and her Ph.D. and postdoctoral degrees at Columbia University in New York. She has taught art and architecture history and design studios at UI-Chicago, Humboldt University in Berlin, Columbia University, New School, Pratt Institute in New York, and METU in Ankara. She has taken leadership positions, including the IES Director at the Einaudi Center for International Studies, Resident Director at the Institute for Comparative Modernities at Cornell University, and the Director of Graduate Studies at UIC. She serves on the editorial boards of the Signale series at Cornell University Press, ArtMargins, International Journal of Islamic Architecture, and Yillik: Annual of Istanbul Studies, and as a frequent blind peer reviewer in her fields. She has advised almost 40 doctoral students (14 as primary advisor) in Architecture History, Art History, and related programs.

Academic Research/Specialty Areas

  • Architectural history
  • Architectural theory
  • Global and intertwined histories of architecture
  • Migration and diaspora studies
  • Critical, postcolonial, and translation theory

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Classes (Selected)

  • ARCH 1802/5802 History of Architecture IIThe history of the built environment as social and cultural expression from more recent times to the present. Architecture and urban design themes, theories, and ideas are addressed in greater detail leading to the present time.
  • ARCH 6308/ARTH 6308/SHUM 6308 Mellon Expanded Practices Graduate Seminar: Migration and DiscriminationThis course addresses pertinent issues relative to the subject of Theory of Architecture. The instructor(s) of the course are drawn from the permanent and visiting faculty who may either broadly or narrowly define the course's scope and content. For precise content please see the Architecture Department webpage.
  • ARCH 3819: Open ArchitectureThis course addresses pertinent issues relative to the subject of History of Architecture and Urbanism. The instructor(s) of the course are drawn from the permanent and visiting faculty who may either broadly or narrowly define the course's scope and content. For precise content, please see the Architecture Department webpage.
  • ARCH 6800: Architecture and JusticeThis seminar will provide a survey of architectural historiography paying particular attention to the paradigm shifts of recent decades. Through the critical readings of important texts we will discuss the current state of the field while simultaneously reconsidering our position in it. The course will address how we apply theory to practice, develop research strategies that maximize methodological alliances, imbue the study of the past with contemporary relevance, and contribute as much to other disciplines as we borrow from them.
  • ARCH 6801: (Foundations of the Discipline): Writing ArchitectureExplorations of seminal positions that established the disciplinary praxis of the history of architecture and urbanism, based on case studies.
  • ARCH 3819: Climate: History: ArchitectureThis course addresses pertinent issues relative to the subject of History of Architecture and Urbanism. The instructor(s) of the course are drawn from the permanent and visiting faculty who may either broadly or narrowly define the course's scope and content. For precise content, please see the Architecture Department webpage.
  • ARCH 6805: Practicum: Building Exhibitions in the Age of ReparationsThis course exercises history of architecture and urbanism's capacities for affecting contemporary events through critical associations with the past. The workshop culminates in an exhibition, publication, symposium, curricular initiative, or other public occasion. Enrollment of qualified graduate students from associated fields is encouraged.

 

Awards, Grants, and Fellowships (Selected)

  • Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies at Harvard University (2019–20)
  • Canadian Center for Architecture (two-time awardee: visiting scholar in 2009 and research fellow in 2019)
  • Graham Foundation (four-time awardee: special recognition for a doctoral dissertation in 2003, publication grants for Architecture in Translation in 2010, and Open Architecture in 2017, CCA Singles as a group project in 2020)
  • Berlin Prize, American Academy in Berlin (2016–17)
  • Getty Research Institute (2008–09)

Exhibitions and Presentations (Selected)

  • “Open Architecture: Reflections on a Book on Migration” Venice Biennial Architecture Exhibition, Venice, Italy (May 20–November 26, 2023)
  • ArchitectuREfugee, competition entry for Turkish Pavilion, Venice Biennale of Architecture, finalist (2016)
  • Urban Renewal and its Discontents: Kreuzberg-IBA '84/87, Istanbul Design Biennale, Istanbul Museum of Modern Art, Istanbul (2012)
  • (Land)Fill Istanbul: Twelve Scenarios for a Global City, First Architectural Festival of Istanbul, Darphane, Istanbul (2004)

Publications (Selected)

Selected Work

  • A book cover titled

    Cover of Art and Architecture of Migration and Discrimination, edited by Esra Akcan and Iftikhar Dadi image / provided

  • dark green solid color book cover with white and grey text on the front

    Irene Cheng, Charles L. Davis II, and Mabel O. Wilson, eds., Race and Modern Architecture: A Critical History from the Enlightenment to the Present (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2020).

  • a colorful book cover with a red rectangle and text over a collage of city buildings

    Esra Akcan's Open Architecture: Migration, Citizenship and the Urban Renewal of Berlin-Kreuzberg (Birkhäuser-De Gruyter, 2018).

  • book cover with text and a black and white photo of a modern building adjacent to an older building set among trees

    Esra Akcan's Architecture in Translation: Germany, Turkey and the Modern House (Duke University Press, 2012).

  • book cover with text over an aerial photo of a city with inset photo of a modern interior in black and white

    Esra Akcan and Sibel Bozdoğan, Turkey: Modern Architectures in History (Reaktion/University of Chicago Press, 2012).

  • book cover with non-English text over a dark orange background

    Esra Akcan's Çeviride Modern Olan. Şehir ve Konutta Türk-Alman İlişkileri (Modernity in Translation: German-Turkish Relations in Urbanism and Housing) (YKY Publishing, 2009).

  • Yellow book cover that reads

    Esra Akcan, Abolish Human Bans: Intertwined Histories of Architecture (CCA Singles).

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