Prof. Dr. Ing. Mag. phil. Daniela Zupan

Daniela Zupan is junior professor for European Cities and Urban Heritage at the Faculty of Architecture and Urban Studies at the Bauhaus University Weimar. Her studies in architecture and Slavic studies were followed by a doctorate at the University of Stuttgart on changes in urban planning models. From 2016-2018, she conducted research on urban conflicts in Germany, Russia, and Ukraine in a project funded by the Volkswagen Foundation. Most recently, she was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow, where she worked on the role of urban development in authoritarian contexts. Her focus is on researching urban transformation processes in Germany, Austria, and the post-socialist region. This includes built urban structures and their discursive negotiation (e.g. value ascriptions), the history of planning ideas in the form of changes in guiding principles, the influence of current ideas and guiding principles on urban development, the socio-spatial, political, and economic transformation processes – as well as the question of the interactions of these levels. She is currently working on contemporary forms of authoritarian urbanism and on the transformation and de-centering of urbanist knowledge production through exile networks. Daniela Zupan is the director of the Institute for European Urban Studies, a member of the board of directors at the International Heritage Centre of the Bauhaus University Weimar, and co-editor of the publication series Interdisciplinary Housing Research at transcript Verlag.