Sebastiaan Loosen
Roles:
Author, Section Editor, Reader
Affiliation:
Institute for the History and Theory of Architecture (gta), ETH Zürich
Country:
Switzerland
Biography
Sebastiaan Loosen is a lecturer and postdoctoral researcher based at ETH Zürich's Institute for the History and Theory of Architecture (gta). His postdoctoral research project, initiated at KTH Stockholm in 2020, aims to chart the role of architectural schools, centres and institutes in contributing to the 1960-80s agenda of 'foreign aid' by offering 'South-oriented' training programs in architecture, urbanism, and spatial planning.
After obtaining degrees in architectural engineering and in philosophy, he completed his doctoral dissertation, Shaping Social Commitment. Architecture and Intellectuality in the 1970s and ’80s, on the formative years of architectural theory in Belgium, investigating the various vantage points from which ‘the social’ was addressed in architectural thought (KU Leuven, 2019). The key themes that permeate his work are historiographical challenges, social commitment, and the intricacies of a globalizing architectural culture. On these themes, he recently co-edited for Architectural Histories a Special Collection on ‘Marxism and Architectural Theory across the East-West Divide’ as well as an open access volume at Leuven University Press based on the international conference Theory’s History, 196X-199X. Challenges in the Historiography of Architectural Knowledge, held in Brussels, February 2017; and is currently co-editing a double theme issue of ABE Journal. Architecture Beyond Europe on 'Architecture in the Foreign Aid-Funded Knowledge Economy'.