Symposium: Translational Histories of Architecture

Jean-Louis Cohen was a historian and curator of architecture who inspired and impacted the work of many. His unexpected passing this summer was a loss to the entire expanded field of architecture. A pioneer of transnational and transmedial histories of architecture, he was a cultural translator whose work and influence crossed boundaries between continents and epochs – from Paris to Moscow, Casablanca to Kharkiv, New York to Brasilia. He had the true gift to mediate and connect people and ideas within academia as well as beyond it. Based in between France and the US for most of his life, his work, impact, and network was profoundly transnational. This gathering - convened and chaired by Markus Lähteenmäki (UCL Institute of Advanced Studies) and Michał Murawski (UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies) - brings together his former mentees, collaborators, interlocutors, friends and followers in and around the UK. The symposium presents a dozen short speeches that vary from anecdotes and recollections to reflections on his method and its impact and critical reconsiderations of historiography.