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Faculty of Architecture La Cambre-Horta (ULB), Room Fl4.6
19 Place Flagey
1050 Brussels
Belgium
Wouter Van Acker is engineer-architect and associate professor at the Faculty of Architecture La Cambre Horta of the Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB) where he co-directs hortence, ULB’s research centre for architectural history, theory and criticism. Before he was Lecturer at Griffith University and doctoral and postdoctoral researcher at Ghent University. He was Review Editor (post-1800) of the EAHN journal Architectural Histories, and is currently editor of journal Clara.
His research focus is postmodern architectural theory, in particular the problem of anti-aesthetics, intermediality and untimeliness, as well as architectural strategies of adaptive re-use and conservation of late 20th century architecture. He is currently writing on the problem of returns and late style in late modernism and postmodernism, the operative use of history in architectural design, and strategies of conservation and re-use of brutalist and postmodern future heritage in Belgium.
Before he has worked on "the architecture of knowledge" and the history architectural epistemology in the early 20th century. His PhD dissertation (Ghent 2011) explored the architecture of knowledge in the work of Paul Otlet (1868-1944), Patrick Geddes (1854-1932) and Otto Neurath (1882-1945). He has edited a special issue of the journal Library Trends on “Information and Space. Analogies and Metaphors”, a book on the Ghent Universal Exhibition of 1913, a book on the transnational history of the UIA (Bloomsbury, 2019), and on Architecture and Ugliness (Bloomsbury, 2020). His research has been published in academic journals such as Perspectives on Science, Knowledge Organization, Revue Belge de Philologie et d'Histoire, Stadsgeschiedenis, Fabrications, arq, Joelho, and contributions to conferences and conference proceedings (SAHANZ, EAHN, SAH...).
Van Acker, W. and S. Lauritano, Untimely Teachers special issue Architectual Theory Review, 2024
Wouter Van Acker (2023) "After the Australian Ugliness", Fabrications, DOI: 10.1080/10331867.2023.2193458
Van Acker, W. (2022). 'The Nine-Square Grid. The Surviving Image of an Architecture without Content,' 13, Joelho Journal of Architectural Culture, 117-135. https://doi.org/10.14195/1647-8681_13_7
Van Acker, W. (2018). ‘Peter Corrigan, the Bodgie Wolf, and Other Larrikin Tygers of Wrath,’ 28 (1), Fabrications, p. 3-24. doi:10.1080/10331867.2017.1410518
Van Acker, W., Leach, A., King, S., & Clarke, A. (2019). ‘Can’t Touch This,’ arq. Architectural research quarterly, 23(1), 63-72. doi:10.1017/S1359135519000058.
Van Acker, W. (2020). ‘Ugliness, or the Cathectic Moment of Modulation between Terror and the Comic in Postmodern Architecture,’ in: Van Acker, W. & Mical, T. (Eds.), Architecture and Ugliness. Anti-aesthetics and the Ugly in Postmodern Architecture. London and New York: Bloomsbury Academic.
Promotor:
PhD Lyna Bourouiba, "Le « degré zéro de l’écriture » architecturale dans l’oeuvre historiographique et critique de Bruno Zevi : dépasser l’antagonisme entre architecture savante et architecture populaire"
PhD Victoire Chancel, "L'architecture du projet : Un diagnostic épistémologique du projet architectural à
l'heure de la gestion de projet"
PhD Lieven De Boeck, "The Archive of Disappearance: a typology"
PhD Alessandra Bruno (Promotor: Ludivine Damay), "Enseigner l’architecture, entre le dire et le faire"
PhD Camille de Jerphanion "La Crise de l'object dans l'architecture postmoderne"
Completed PhD
PhD Alberto Squizatto (Promotors: Salvator-John Liotta and Wouter Van Acker) "Understanding and Evaluating Bottom-Up Urban Regeneration. Cultural Projects as Drivers for Urban Change in Favara and Amsterdam"
Président du Comité d'accompagenement:
Anne-Laure Iger, "Entre activisme et institutionnalisation, les mutations de l’exposition d’architecture, à Bruxelles, entre 1930 et 2018"
Olivier Sire, "Urbanisme tactique : Morphologie des possiblesRecherche par le projet à Bruxelles"
Uri Wegman "Drawing Air in Architecture"
history and theory of late modern and postmodern heritage and aesthetics
architectural strategies of adaptive re-use
architecture of knowledge and archival art