Mari Hvattum - Biography#

Mari Hvattum is an architect and architectural historian specialising on 19th and 20th century architectural thinking. After completing her PhD at the University of Cambridge in 1999, Hvattum taught architectural history and theory at several institutions, e.g. The Architectural Association, London, University of Edinburgh, and Central European University in Prague, before becoming associate professor at The Oslo School of Architecture and Design in 2002 and full professor in 2008.

Hvattum’s research has focused on architectural knowledge and the way it has been constructed, legitimised, and disseminated. Through her work on Gottfried Semper, Karl Bötticher, and others she has explored the epistemological foundations of modern architectural culture. A parallel interest has been the relationship between architecture and infrastructure, be it in the form of road- and railway building or nineteenth-century print- and publication cultures. These topics have been explored in multidisciplinary research projects such as Routes, Roads and Landscapes (2008-2012); The Printed and the Built (2014-2018); and Printing the Past (2015-2019), all led by Hvattum

Hvattum has written and edited numerous books, e.g. Gottfried Semper and the Problem of Historicism (Cambridge University Press 2004); Routes, Roads and Landscapes (ed. w/Brenna et.al., Ashgate 2011); Modelling Time (ed. w/ Lending, Torpedo 2014), and most recently The Printed and the Built (ed. w/Hultzsch, Bloomsbury 2018). She lectures worldwide on 19th century architectural culture.