This paper will look at the internationalization of modern architecture in the interwar period (1919-1939) with a particular focus on the role played here by the Congrès Internationaux d’Architecture Moderne (CIAM), the branch’s most important professional organization. Using Poland and some of its Central European neighbours as examples, the paper will demonstrate the profound effects which CIAM, in its self-understood role as a platform for expert collaboration for finding solutions to the most pressing social, economic and even political problems of the time, had in supporting the emergence of a transnational discourse in built form.

This talk is part of the CCGES lecture series “Germany in the World: The Nation Transcended in the Age of Globalization,” which offers North American and European scholars from a variety of academic fields a platform to contribute to the ongoing discussions regarding transnationalism and globalization by presenting their current research on related topics.

Dr. Martin Kohlrausch is a Research Fellow at the German Historical Institute Warsaw. Prior to this, he was Assistant Professor at the TU Berlin’s History Department from 2003 to 2005. Among his publications are: “Doppelte Avantgarde. Urbanistische Innovation und internationale Vernetzung. Polen im europäischen Kontext (ca. 1916-1948),” in: Kulturgeschichtliches Jahrbuch Moderne 2 (2006) and Der Monarch im Skandal. Die Logik der Massenmedien und die Transformation der wilhelminischen Monarchie, Berlin 2005.

Time: 12:30 to 2:00 pm
Location: 230 York Lanes