Short CV
Verena von Beckerath is an architect, co-founder of the Berlin-based architecture practice Heide & von Beckerath (www.placeswe.live), and Professor for Design and Housing at the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar.
She studied sociology, art history, and psychology in Paris and Hamburg, and architecture at the Technische Universität Berlin. She worked as a research assistant at the Berlin University of the Arts and was a guest professor at the Technische Universität Braunschweig and Cornell University. Verena von Beckerath was a fellow at the Akademie Schloss Solitude and a Rome Prize recipient from the German Academy Rome Villa Massimo.
Research focus
The research activities of the Professorship for Design and Housing center on residential architecture and expand its scope to encompass additional contexts. These activities are based on multi-year thematic questions and internationally oriented research projects in teaching. The professorship publishes an analog publication series, maintains an ongoing digital publication project, regularly participates in symposia and exhibitions, has curated several exhibitions, and has produced a film.
Verena von Beckerath publishes in journals and books and edits her own book publications. Her work on the architecture of housing and forms of community encompasses speculative, disciplinary, historical, economic and ecological approaches in equal measure. Together with Barbara Schönig, she was involved in the cooperative implementation of the research project “Drei Zimmer, Küche, Diele, Bad”, which was financed by third-party funds and has since been completed and published.
Recent projects
- “A Room with a View – Discussions about protecting Venice” coincide with the specifics of an accommodation whose level of comfort eludes the usual categories of hotel rating by being neither youth hostel norg grand hotel, while combining elements of both in a contradictory and unique way. The heritage of the Pensione Seguso and its maintenance, its everyday upkeep, repairs and prospective development, as well as the related issues across generations, are essential for this publication and the research interest associated with it. The “A Room with a View” book project was edited by Verena von Beckerath, published by Monroe Books in 2023 and funded by the Kreativfonds at Bauhaus-Universität Weimar with contributions by Andrew Alberts, Ludovico Centis, Lawrence Hoque, Albrecht Kastein, Oda Pälmke and Yvonne Matijas Seguso.
- “Drei Zimmer, Küche, Diele, Bad” – Research project (2017-2021) in collaboration with Prof. Dr.-Ing. Barbara Schönig, Chair of Urban Planning, 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.
- Two Houses – The Two Houses research project at the Chair of Design and Housing at Bauhaus-Universität Weimar focuses on the interaction between the Bauhaus and Japan, based on two houses in the suburbs of Tokyo – Migishi Atelier and Bunzo Yamaguchi House. Both houses were designed in the 1930s and 40s by Japanese architect Iwao Yamawaki, a student at the Bauhaus in Dessau, and Bunzo Yamaguchi, who worked in Walter Gropius’ practice at that time, and are still privately owned today. The film “Two Houses” documents the buildings’ architecture and tells the story of their inhabitants, providing glimpses of life in and with the buildings. It is accompanied by the publication “Two Houses – Texts” (NOA 7, published in 2019) which includes interviews with Helena Čapkova, Terunobu Fujimori, Taishi Watanabe and Yoshiharu Tsukamoto as well as texts and images from the film and drawings of the houses in different stages. (Two Houses / 2019 / 38min / Director: Verena von Beckerath / Assistant directors: Niklas Fanelsa, Momoko Yasaka, Maximilian von Zepelin / Camera, Sound, Editing: Jens Franke / Produced by: Bauhaus-Universität Weimar)