Short CV
Barbara Schönig is Professor of Urban Planning at Bauhaus Universität Weimar and spokesperson for the DFG Research Training Group “Societal Transformation and the Spatial Materialization of Housing.”
She studied Modern German Literature, Art History, and Urban and Regional Planning in Berlin and Columbus, Ohio (USA) and earned her doctorate at Technische Universität Berlin on regional urban planning and civil society in the USA. She taught at TU Berlin (Planning and Architecture Sociology) and TU Darmstadt (Spatial and Infrastructure Planning). She served at Bauhaus Universität as Vice Dean for Research (2015–2019) and Director of the Institute for European Urban Studies (2013–2021). From December 2021 to July 2024, she was State Secretary at the Thuringian Ministry for Infrastructure and Agriculture, overseeing construction, urban development, housing, transport, and mobility.
Research focus
Barbara Schönig’s teaching and research explore processes and stakeholders in the planning and production of urban and spatial environments. Her fields of interest include interdisciplinary housing research, social housing, participation and urban development, as well as the (re)structuring of urban, suburban, and rural spaces in the context of societal transformations.
She is co-editor of the series “Interdisziplinäre Wohnungsforschung“ and “Stadt, Raum und Gesellschaft”.
Recent projects
- Wohnen im Denkmal. Erhaltung und Gestaltung von denkmalgeschützten baulichen Realisierungen zentraler Wohnkonzepte des 20. Jahrhunderts, in cooperation with Prof. Dr. Heike Oevermann, TU Vienna (DFG)
- DFG Research Training Group “Identity and Heritage” (co-applicant)
- “Drei Zimmer, Küche, Diele, Bad” – Research project (2017-2021) in collaboration with Prof. Verena von Beckerath, Chair of Design and Housing Construction, with the assistance of Jessica Christoph and Carsten Praum at the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar (Thüringer Aufbaubank) – As part of the project, questions about living in the future were formulated, negotiated and researched based on the transformation of a vacant apartment in a listed building ensemble from the 1920s in Weimar. The results of the research project were published in 2022 under the title “Drei Zimmer, Küche, Diele, Bad: Eine Wohnung mit Optionen” by JOVIS Verlag.