Daniela Fabricius

Daniela Fabricius is a historian and theorist of architecture and urbanism. Her research interests include postwar German architecture and politics, the history of digital design, feminist histories and theories, contemporary urbanism, and spatial forms of social and ecological reparations. She is working on a book called Calculation and Risk: The Rational Turn in West German Architecture, which considers the ethics of rationalism in postwar West German architecture, as well as an edited volume of the writings of the feminist theorist Jennifer Bloomer.

Her work has been supported by the Graham Foundation, the New York State Council on the Arts, the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program, a DAAD Research Fellowship, and a Whiting Doctoral Fellowship. She has taught at Cornell University, the School of Visual Arts, and the University of Pennsylvania

Recent publications: “Postmodernism and the Bauhaus Critique in West Germany,” in CCSA Topics (Frankfurt: Center for Critical Studies in Architecture, forthcoming). “Image, Medium, Artifact: Heinrich Klotz and the Postmodern Architecture Museum,” in Mediated Messages: Periodicals, Exhibitions and the Shaping of Postmodern Architecture, ed. Léa-Catherine Szacka and Véronique Patteeuw (London: Bloomsbury, 2018) “Material Models, Photography, and the Threshold of Calculation,” arq: Architecture Research Quarterly Volume 21, Issue 1 (2017). "Architecture before architecture: Frei Otto’s ‘Deep History,’" Journal of Architecture Volume 21, Issue 8, 2016. “Displaced Landscapes: Weimar Space between the Urban and the Rural,” in New Realities and Neue Sachlichkeit: Modern German Art during the Weimar Republic, ed. Stephanie Barron and Sabine Eckmann (Los Angeles: LACMA/Prestel, 2015). “Confessions of a Voluntary Prisoner,” Journal of Architectural Education Volume 69, Issue 2, September 2015. "Who’s Afraid of Ludwig Hilberseimer? Spectrality and Space in the Groszstadt," Journal of Architectural Education Volume 67, Issue 1, March 2013.

Recent talks: “Postmodernism and the Bauhaus Critique in West Germany,” Deutsches Architekturmuseum Frankfurt, February 14, 2018. Moderator, “[RE]FORM: The Framework, Fallout & Future of Women in Design,” University of Pennsylvania School of Design, April 14, 2017. “Thresholds of Calculation: The Material Experiments of Frei Otto,” PhD Colloquium, PennDesign, February 17, 2017. Presenter, “Panel Discussion: Environmental Histories of Architecture,” University of Pennsylvania School of Design, January 30, 2017. “Thresholds of Calculation: The Material Experiments of Frei Otto,” Symposium Frei Otto: Thinking by Modeling, ZKM (Center for Art and Media), Karlsruhe, January 27, 2017. Session Chair, “Coded Architecture and the Paradoxes of Control,” Society of Architectural Historians Annual Conference, Pasadena, CA, April 6-10, 2016.

Ph.D., Princeton University, History and Theory of Architecture; M.Arch., Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation; B.A., Brown University, Visual Art and Comparative Literature