Robin Schuldenfrei鈥檚 research and teaching focuses on the history and theory of modern architecture, concentrating on the subjectivity, materiality, political agency, and social impact of objects and spaces. She is interested in broad questions鈥攖heoretical and practical鈥攐f how discourses and practices of design are shaped by a given period鈥檚 own cultural and theoretical critique of its media and objects. Her research brings together three over-arching concerns of modernism: issues of materiality, architecture鈥檚 reproducibility, and investigations of transference and displacement. Schuldenfrei’s work interrogates the ways in which architecture and its objects relate to other products of society鈥檚 design鈥攖o works of art, to the production of images, to media, and to technology鈥攁nd as deeply embedded in their period, culture, and intellectual/theoretical climate. To that end, she utilizes both objects and architecture as cultural indices of society at large in order to illustrate the conscious and unconscious perspectives and values of the society that generated them. More recent research lies in the area of exile and global movement. Examining paths of migration, exile and dislocation globally, she closely considers issues of detemporalization and destabilization in architectural modernism.
Schuldenfrei is committed to advancing broad, interdisciplinary conversations that are crucial for the liberal arts鈥 grappling with the protracted problems of our age. She is Head of The Courtauld’s Research Cluster Migrations: People, Politics, Objects 听which brings together interdisciplinary research and creative work related to the global movement of peoples in order to explicate the cultural value, conditions and economics of migration through the study of objects and architecture, as well as its political and legal frameworks. Schuldenfrei is a Principal Investigator and organizational member of the interest group of the European Architectural History Network (EAHN). She is an active member in the UK-based collective which seeks to impact architectural history and architecture as a practice in actively decolonizing teaching, research, and the built environment, through the investigation of a broad set of issues and questions concerning identity, race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, class, and power. She is also active in a myriad of efforts in support of Ukrainian architects, historians and preservationists.
She is also a founding member of the Architecture Cultures Research Cluster at The Courtauld. She regularly organises academic events through The Courtauld鈥檚 Research Forum.
Professor Schuldenfrei received her PhD from Harvard University鈥檚 Graduate School of Design and previously held tenure-track positions at the Humboldt-Universit盲t zu Berlin and the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Schuldenfrei has lectured widely, including: Columbia University, ETH Z眉rich, German Center for Art History (DFK Paris), Harvard University, Kunsthistorisches Institut Florenz (Max-Planck-Institut), MIT, Princeton, Royal College of Art, Terra Foundation for American Art (Chicago and Paris), Universit盲t f眉r angewandte Kunst Wien, University of Edinburgh, University of Hong Kong, and Yale. Her research has been supported by awards from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, the Gerda Henkel Foundation, SAH / Mellon, and the Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst (DAAD).
Schuldenfrei is a regular interviewee on documentary films, tv and radio programs including film, for ARTE, for BBC 4 tv, with Melvyn Bragg on BBC Radio 4, and design podcasts including , and .
Teaching
- MA History of Art (year-long MA programme): Experiencing Modernism: Utopia, Politics, and Times of Turmoil
- BA3 Lessons in Critical Interpretation
- BA2 Frameworks for Interpretation: Space, Power, and Experience; Objects and Things: A Material Turn
- BA2 Lecture: The Modern Interior
- BA1 Topic Course: The Global Political City: Urban Issues in Contemporary Art
- BA 1 Topic Course: Making Modernism: Technology and London Architecture
- BA1 Foundations: 19th- & 20th-Century Architecture & Design
PhD supervision
Research interests
- European & American Modernism:听 architecture, design, art, media, and the history of technology
- 19th & 20th c. Architectural History
- History and Theory of the Object
- Interior Architecture and Design
- German Modernism
- Architectural Theory
- Materiality of the Global South
- Migration and Architecture
Publications
Books
听 (Princeton University Press, 2024), 346 pages, 170 illustrations.
In the fraught years leading up to World War II, many modern artists and architects emigrated from continental Europe to the United States and Britain. The experience of exile infused their modernist ideas with new urgency, and forced them to use certain materials in place of others, modify existing works, and reconsider their approach to design itself. Objects in Exile reveals how the process of migration was crucial to the development of modernism, charting how modern art and architecture was shaped by the need to constantly face鈥攁nd transcend鈥攖he materiality of things.
From the prewar era to the 1960s, Objects in Exile explores the objects these 茅migr茅s brought with them, what they left behind, and the new works they completed in exile. It argues that modernism could only coalesce with the abandonment of national borders in a process of emigration and resettlement, and brings to life the vibrant postwar period when avant-garde ideas came together and emerged as mainstream modernism. Examining works by Walter Gropius, L谩szl贸 Moholy-Nagy, Lucia Moholy, Herbert Bayer, Anni and Josef Albers, and others, Objects in Exile demonstrates the social impact of art objects produced in exile.
Shedding critical light on how the pressures of dislocation irrevocably altered the course of modernism, Objects in Exile shows how artists and designers, forced into exile by circumstances beyond their control, changed in unexpected ways to meet the needs and contexts of an uncertain world.
(Princeton University Press, 2018), 336 pages, 200 illustrations. .
In a period of social unrest and extreme wealth disparity between the average worker and those at the helm of capitalist enterprises generating immense profits, architects envisioned modern designs providing solutions for a more equitable future.听Luxury and Modernism听exposes the disconnect between modernism鈥檚 utopian discourse and its luxury objects and elite architectural commissions. While modernism was publicized as a fusion of technology, new materials, and rational aesthetics to improve the lives of ordinary people, it was often out of reach to the very masses it purportedly served.听Luxury and Modernism听shows how luxury was present in bold, literal forms in modern designs鈥夆斺塮rom rarified materials and costly technologies to lavish buildings and household objects鈥攁nd in subtler ways as well, such as social milieus and modes of living. Despite the movement鈥檚 egalitarian rhetoric, many modern designs addressed the desires of the privileged individual. Yet as the book demonstrates, luxury was integral not only to how modern buildings and objects were designed, manufactured, and sold, but has contributed to modernism鈥檚 allure to this day.听Luxury and Modernism听provides a new interpretation of modern architecture and design in Germany, tracing modernism鈥檚 many manifestations of luxury and revealing the complexities and contradictions inherent to modernism鈥檚 promotion and consumption.
. Edited by Robin Schuldenfrei (London: Routledge / Taylor and Francis, 2020).听听and essay听听therein.
This edited volume considers the ways in which multiple stages, phases, or periods in an artistic or design process have served to arrive at the final artifact, with a focus on the meaning and use of the iteration. To contextualize iteration within artistic and architectural production, this collection of essays presents a range of close studies in art, architectural and design history, using archival and historiographical research, media theory, photography, material studies, and critical theory. It examines objects as unique yet mutable works by examining their antecedents, successive exemplars, and their afterlives鈥攁nd thus their role as organizers or repositories of meaning. Key are the roles of writing, the use of media, and relationships between object, image, and reproduction. This volume asks how a closer look at iteration reveals new perspectives into the production of objects and the production of thought alike.
. Edited by Jan Tichy and Robin Schuldenfrei (Chicago: IIT Institute of Design, 2019), 118 pages.听听Robin Schuldenfrei with Jan Tichy, therein.
Ascendants: Bauhaus Handprints Collected by L谩szl贸 Moholy-Nagy听offers a unique insight into one of the less familiar sides of the Bauhaus at large and Moholy-Nagy in particular. In May 1926, thirteen Bauhaus professors and students created handprints that were preserved by L谩szl贸 Moholy-Nagy. This publication brings together for the first time all of the so-called Bauhaus handprints in their historical and contemporary contexts with scholars and artists touching upon and responding to the Bauhaus legacy.
.听Edited by Robin Schuldenfrei (London: Routledge / Taylor and Francis, 2012). 鈥樷櫶齛nd essay 鈥樷櫶齮herein.
In the years of reconstruction and economic boom that followed the Second World War, the domestic sphere encountered new expectations regarding social behaviour, modes of living, and forms of dwelling. This book brings together an international group of scholars from architecture, design, urban planning, and interior design to reappraise mid-twentieth century modern life, offering a timely reassessment of culture and the economic and political effects on civilian life.
This collection includes essays that examine art, objects, and spaces in the context of practices of dwelling over the long span of the postwar period. The authors consider various postwar spaces and the ways in which the anxiety of the cold war era infiltrated the domestic sphere or, the ways in which various versions of 鈥渉ome鈥 were conjured to ease broader outside political or cultural tensions. Atomic Dwelling: Anxiety, Domesticity, and Postwar Architecture asks what role material objects, interior spaces, and architecture played in quelling or fanning the anxieties of modernism鈥檚 ordinary denizens, and how this role informs their legacy today.
.听Edited by Jeffrey Saletnik and Robin Schuldenfrei (London: Routledge / Taylor & Francis, 2009). 鈥樚齛nd essay 鈥
In the years of reconstruction and economic boom that followed the Second World War, the domestic sphere encountered new expectations regarding social behaviour, modes of living, and forms of dwelling. This book brings together an international group of scholars from architecture, design, urban planning, and interior design to reappraise mid-twentieth century modern life, offering a timely reassessment of culture and the economic and political effects on civilian life.
This collection includes essays that examine art, objects, and spaces in the context of practices of dwelling over the long span of the postwar period. The authors consider various postwar spaces and the ways in which the anxiety of the cold war era infiltrated the domestic sphere or, the ways in which various versions of 鈥渉ome鈥 were conjured to ease broader outside political or cultural tensions. Atomic Dwelling: Anxiety, Domesticity, and Postwar Architecture asks what role material objects, interior spaces, and architecture played in quelling or fanning the anxieties of modernism鈥檚 ordinary denizens, and how this role informs their legacy today.
Essays and articles
Robin Schuldenfrei, 鈥楾he Bauhaus Negatives鈥 and 鈥楶roducts of Objectivity鈥 in Lucia Moholy: Exposures, ed. Jordan Troeller (Berlin: Hatje Cantz, 2024), pp. 136-169.
Robin Schuldenfrei, 鈥楨mbodied Modernism: Experiential Living in an Experimental House,鈥 in Space + Place: Third Tri-Annual Lovis Corinth Colloquium on German Modernism, ed. Lisa Lee, Christina Crawford, and Nathan Goldberg (Leiden: Brill, forthcoming Spring 2024).
Robin Schuldenfrei, 鈥楶eter Behrens bei der AEG: Luxusschaufenster und moderne Industrie / Peter Behrens at the AEG: Display Windows of Luxury and Modern Industry,鈥 in Die gro脽e Verf眉hrung: Karl Ernst Osthaus und die Anf盲nge der Konsumkultur / The Grand Seduction: Karl Ernst Osthaus and the Beginnings of Consumer Culture (K枚ln: Wienand Verlag, 2023), pp. 274-279.
Robin Schuldenfrei, 鈥楪rid and Cell: Inhabiting Hilberseimer鈥檚 City,鈥 in Architect of Letters: Reading Hilberseimer, ed. Florian Strob (Basel: Birkh盲user Verlag, 2022), pp. 70-82.
Robin Schuldenfrei, 鈥楲ucia Moholys Bauhaus-Negative und die Konstruktion eines modernistischen Erbes,鈥 in Lucia Moholy: Das Bild der Moderne, ed. Tobias Hoffmann, Thomas Derda, and Fabian Reifferscheidt (Cologne: Wienand, 2022), pp. 114-141.
Robin Schuldenfrei, 鈥楾opographies of subordination and resistance in CLR James The Black Jacobins鈥 in Unsettled Subjects/Unsettling Landscapes: Confronting Questions of Architecture in C.L.R James’ The Black Jacobins, by Unsettled Subjects, Field Journal 8, no. 1 (March 2022): 145-167 (therein pp. 152-155), special issue on 鈥楨mbodying an Anti-Racist Architecture.’
Robin Schuldenfrei, 鈥楳ateriality in Perspective: Monuments, Object Relations, and Post-War Berlin,鈥 Word and Image 37, no. 3 (December 2021), pp. 275-287, special issue on 鈥楶erspective,鈥 guest edited by Julie Park.
Robin Schuldenfrei, in听, edited by Laura Muir (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2021), pp. 95-114. Published in Greek translation: 鈥淧roducing the Bauhaus: Preliminary Objects for Modern Subjects,鈥 in Bauhaus and Greece, ed. Sokratis Georgiadis and Andreas Giacumacatos听 (Athens: Kapon Editions, 2021), pp. 24-35.
The Resonant Object, special issue in tribute to Charles W. Haxthausen,听, edited by Amy Hamlin and Robin Schuldenfrei, no. 21 (December 2019). 鈥溾 therein.
Robin Schuldenfrei, 听in听Dust & Data: Traces of the Bauhaus across 100 Years, edited by Ines Weizman (Leipzig: Spector Books, 2019), pp. 142-166.
Robin Schuldenfrei, 鈥樷 in听Histories of Ornament: From Global to Local, edited by Alina Payne and G眉lru Necipo臒lu (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016), pp. 334-347.
Robin Schuldenfrei, 听in听Konstantin Grcic: Abbildungen /听Figures,听ed. Friedrich Meschede (Zurich:听Lars M眉ller, 2016), pp. 294-344, in English and German.
Robin Schuldenfrei, 鈥樷 (The Luxury of Objectivity: Display Windows around 1914) in听Kunst und Architektur an der Epochenschwelle: Das Hauptgeb盲ude der Universit盲t Z眉rich von 1914, edited by Martino Stierli (Basel: Schwabe Verlag, 2016), pp. 153-96, in German.
Republished in:听Made in Germany: Politik mit Dingen Der Deutsche Werkbund um 1914, edited by Renate Flagmeier (Berlin: Brandenburgische Universit盲tsdruckerei und Verlagsgesellschaft, 2017), pp. 70-107.
Robin Schuldenfrei, 鈥楨xistenzminimum as Gesamtkunstwerk鈥櫶齣n The death and life of the total work of art: Henry Van De Velde and 迟丑别听legacy of a modern concept, edited by Carsten Ruhl, Rixt Hoekstra and Chris D盲hne (Berlin: Jovis Verlag, 2014), pp. 63-78.
Robin Schuldenfrei, 听in听Interiors and Interiority, edited by Ewa Lajer-Burcharth and Beate Soentgen (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2014), pp. 279-94.
Robin Schuldenfrei, 鈥樷櫶齮o Lilly Reich, 鈥楺uestions of Fashion鈥 (1922) in West 86th: A Journal of Decorative Arts, Design History and Material Culture, volume 21, no. 1 (Spring-Summer 2014): 102-120.
Robin Schuldenfrei, , in Alicja Kwade: Grad der Gewissheit (Degree of Certainty), edited by Sylvia Martin (Berlin: Distanz, 2014), pp. 138-147; German: 鈥淒as Auratische Produktive Objekt,鈥 pp. 126-137.
Robin Schuldenfrei, 鈥樚齣n听Architecture and Capitalism: 1845 to the Present, edited by Peggy Deamer (London: Routledge, 2013), pp. 71-95.
Robin Schuldenfrei, 鈥Images in Exile: Lucia Moholy鈥檚 Bauhaus Negatives and the Construction of the Bauhaus Legacy鈥听in听History of Photography, Volume 37, No. 2 (May 2013), pp. 182-203.
Robin Schuldenfrei, 鈥樚(Images in Exile: Lucia Moholy鈥檚 Bauhaus Photographs and the Making of the Bauhaus Legacy) in听Entfernt:听Frauen des Bauhauses w盲hrend der NS-Zeit 鈥 Verfolgung und Exil,听edited by Inge Hansen-Schaberg, Wolfgang Th枚ner, and Adriane Feustel (M眉nchen: Richard Boorberg Verlag, Edition Text + Kritik, 2012), pp. 251-273.
Robin Schuldenfrei, 鈥 (Luxury, Production, Reproduction) in听Mythos Bauhaus: Zwischen Selbsterfindung und Enthistorisierung.听Edited by Anja Baumhoff and Magdalena Droste (Berlin: Reimer Verlag, 2009), pp. 70-89.
Robin Schuldenfrei, Review of Jill Pearlman,听American Modernism: Joseph Hudnut, Walter Gropius, and the Bauhaus Legacy at Harvard听(Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2007) for听Design & Culture,听Volume 1, Issue 3 (November 2009), pp. 387-389.
Robin Schuldenfrei, . Exhibition Catalogue, Harvard University Art Museums Gallery Series, Number 40, 2004.
PhD supervision
Richard Coward, ‘The rise and demise of Art Nouveau considered though a semiotic appraisal of Victor Horta鈥檚 Architecture’. Supervisor (The Courtauld).
Rachel Denniston, ‘Curating the 鈥楢nti-Museum鈥: Women and the Occult Publics of Abstraction, 1910-45’. Supervisor (The Courtauld).
Claudine Seroussi, 鈥楥ontinuity and disruption: The French jeweller 1920-1929鈥. Supervisor, with Caroline Levitt (The Courtauld).
Bethany Claus Widick, 鈥楻ooms of her Own: a Gendered Spatial Analysis of Women鈥檚 Professional and Social Clubs in Victorian and Edwardian London鈥. Supervisor (The Courtauld)
Michelle Zhu, CI, 鈥楾he 鈥楥riminal鈥 Other?: The Politics of Citizenship in the Visual Culture of the Weimar Republic鈥. Advisor, Supervisor: Prof. Dorothy Price (The Courtauld).
Elina Axioti, 鈥楬otel Rooms: Politics of Isolation 鈥 Rules of Hospitality鈥. Supervisor (Humboldt University Berlin)
Kathrin Engler, 鈥楶atterns of Life 鈥 Andrea Zittel鈥檚听A-Z Enterprise鈥. Supervisor, with Prof. Gregor Stemmrich (Free University of Berlin)
Recently completed
Phoebe Day, ‘”Paris Is a Vast Library Hall”: Gis猫le Freund鈥檚 Photographs of Walter Benjamin at the Biblioth猫que nationale Reconsidered’. Supervisor (The Courtauld, 2025)
Laura C. Jenkins, 鈥楥ivilising Decoration: French Interiors in the American Gilded Age, 1882-1914鈥. Advisor, Supervisor: Prof. Katie Scott (The Courtauld, 2024)
Friederike Sch盲fer, 鈥楥laiming Space(s): Locating Suzanne Harris鈥 Dance Practice and Ephemeral Installations within New York City in the 1970s鈥 (Humboldt University Berlin, 2020)
Lena Hennewig, Humboldt-Universit盲t zu Berlin, 鈥樷淯ralt, ewig neu鈥 Oskar Schlemmers Bild von Mensch, Raum und Kunstfigur w盲hrend seiner T盲tigkeit am Bauhaus鈥 (Humboldt University Berlin, 2020)
Nico Janke, 鈥楧ie M枚belkunst an der sudlichen Ostseekuste Deutschlands ca. 1780-1850鈥 (Humboldt University Berlin, 2016)
Sandra K枚nig, 鈥楢lbinm眉ller (1871-1941) 鈥 Kunstgewerbe zwischen Jugendstil und Werkbund鈥, supervised with Dr Annette Dorgerloh (Humboldt University Berlin, 2015)
Monica Obniski, 鈥楢ccumulating Things: Folk Art and Modern Design in the Postwar American Projects of Alexander H. Girard鈥, supervised with Prof. Robert Bruegmann, Prof. Pat Kirkham, Prof. Jonathan Mekinda (University of Illinois at Chicago, 2015)
Sarah M. Dreller, 鈥楾he Time, Life, and Fortune of Time Inc.鈥檚 Architectural Forum magazine, 1932-64鈥, supervised with Prof. Robert Bruegmann, Prof. Esra Akcan (University of Illinois at Chicago, 2015)
Erica Morawski, 鈥楧esigning Destinations: Architecture, Urbanism, and American Tourism in Puerto Rico and Cuba鈥, supervised with Prof. Robert Bruegmann, Prof. Esra Akcan, Prof. Kathryn O鈥橰ourke (University of Illinois at Chicago, 2014)