Publications (selection)
- Architecture as Technical Governance at the African Union 2023
- What is Critical Urbanism? Urban Research as Pedagogy 2022
- Is there an Environmental Modernism? 2022
- The Implementation of the EU Hotspot Approach in Greece and Italy: A Comparative and Interdisciplinary Analysis 2021
- Coloniality of Infrastructure 2021
- On the Coloniality of Architectural Modernism in Germany 2021
- Urban Studies at the University of Basel 2020
- Infrastructure Between Statehood and Selfhood: The Trans-African Highway 2020
- Neoliberalism on the Ground: Architecture and Transformation from the 1960s to the Present 2020
- Gardening as Geopolitics 2020
- The Invention of Indigenous Architecture 2020
- A miniseries on refugees in the COVID-19 pandemic. Part 4. Contagion and containment. Curtailing the freedom of movement in times of coronavirus 2020
- The Global Age of Mass Housing 2020
- Die Gespenster Eurafrikas 2020
- Spaces of Uncertainty: Berlin Revisited 2018
- La banlieue, un projet social 2018
- Architecture and the Environment 2018
- Modernism as Accommodation 2018
- The Power of Association: Le Corbusier in the Banlieues 2018
- Projective Geographies Between East and West 2017
- Shopping à l'américaine 2017
- Éric Rohmer in Cergy-Pontoise 2017
- Bodenständigkeit: The Environmental Epistemology of Modernism 2016
- Géographie Volontaire and the Territorial Logic of Architecture 2016
- Human Territoriality and the Downfall of Public Housing 2016
- Mapping and Making Community in the Postwar European City 2016
- The Infrastructure of Participation: Cultural Centres in Postwar Europe 2016
- The Cultural Center: Architecture as Cultural Policy in Postwar Europe 2015
- Why we like to blame buildings 2015
- The Urbanism of Los Angeles Street Vending 2015
- The Social Project – Housing Postwar France 2014
- The Studio and The City: Notes on Architectural Pedagogy 2014
- Where is the social project? 2014
- Use Matters 2013
- Making Camp: Landscape and Community in the Interwar German Youth Movements 2012
- Designing Social Life: The Urbanism of the Grands Ensembles 2010
- The expertise of participation: mass housing and urban planning in postwar France 2010
- Agency in Architecture: Rethinking Criticality in Theory and Practice 2009
- Governing through nature: Camps and youth movements in interwar Germany and the United States 2008
- Towards a Nomadic Geography: Rethinking Space and Identity for the Potentials of Progressive Politics in the Contemporary City 2005
- Spaces of Uncertainty 2002
Projects (selection)
- Kamĩrĩĩthũ Afterlives 2020–2026
- The Earth that Modernism Built: A Design History of German Colonialism 2014–2024
- South Designs 2022–2024
- How Infrastructure Shaped Territory in Africa 2018–2022
- Making Infrastructure Global? 2020–2022
- Infrastructure Space and the Future of Migration Management 2018–2021
- Highway Africa 2017–2020
Courses
- Critical Urbanisms: Theories and Methods Fall 2017
- Histories of Urbanization Fall 2017
- Histories of Urbanization: Seminar Fall 2017
- How does the 99% live? World Histories of Housing Fall 2017
- Housing from Above and Below Fall 2017
- Urban Research Design Fall 2017
- Modern Urbanism, Study Trip: Berlin Spring 2018
- Highway Africa Research Studio Fall 2018
- Critical Urbanisms: Theories and Methods Fall 2018
- Studio: Advanced Interdisciplinary Work Fall 2018
- Global Housing Histories Fall 2018
- Global Housing Histories: Current Debates Fall 2018
- Urban Research Design Spring 2019
- Casablanca: Colonialism and Modern Urbanism Spring 2019
- Critical Urbanisms: Theories and Methods Fall 2019
- The City: Planetary Histories Fall 2019
- Geopolitics of Urbanization: China's Belt and Road Initiative In Africa Fall 2019
- Advanced Interdisciplinary Work Fall 2019
- Highway Africa: Infrastructure, Decolonization and the City Fall 2019
- Seminar: Migration Infrastructure Spring 2020
- Urban Research Design Spring 2020
- Studio: Interdisciplinary Urban Research Fall 2020
- Critical Urbanisms: Introduction Fall 2020
- The City as Archive Fall 2020
- Material Investigations Fall 2020
- Theory in Urban Studies Fall 2020
- Studio: Interdisciplinary Urban Research Fall 2021
- The City as Archive Fall 2022
- Studio: Interdisciplinary Urban Research Fall 2022
- Critical Urbanisms: Introduction & Orientation Fall 2022
- The City as Archive ( 3 KP ) Fall 2023
- Critical Urbanisms: Introduction & Orientation ( 3 KP ) Fall 2023
- Studio: Interdisciplinary Urban Research ( 10 KP ) Fall 2023
- South Designs for Planetary Futures ( 2 KP ) Fall 2023
Kenny Cupers co-founded and leads the Critical Urbanisms program at the University of Basel. He is committed to the development of the urban humanities through collaborative pedagogy and public-facing research at the intersection of architectural history, urban studies, and critical geography. He has published widely on mass housing, architectural modernism, and planning history. Grounded in primary research, his scholarship analyzes spaces and landscapes in order to answer questions about power and historical change.
Cupers is currently working on two book projects. The Earth that Modernism Built is a historical study of German imperialism in southern Africa and central Europe that traces how land and life were turned into objects of design. The second project explores infrastructure as African worldmaking. In this context, Cupers is currently working in Kenya with Kamirithu community actors and Dr. Makau Kitata to build a digital archive of decolonization, and with Save Lamu to address social and environmental justice in Africa’s mega-infrastructure boom.
Cupers is the author of the award-winning The Social Project: Housing Postwar France (2014), translated into French as La banlieue, un projet social: Ambitions d’une politique urbaine, 1945-1975 (2018). The book reveals how France’s unprecedented building boom after WWII turned dwelling into an object of modernization, an everyday site of citizen participation, and a domain of social scientific expertise. His co-edited volume Architecture and Neoliberalism from the 1960s to the Present (with Helena Mattsson & Catharina Gabrielsson, 2019) explores the multivalent role of architecture and urbanism in processes of neoliberal transformation. His edited volume Use Matters: An Alternative History of Architecture (Routledge, 2013) examines how architecture depended on changing definitions of use throughout the twentieth century. Spaces of Uncertainty (2002), co-authored with Markus Miessen, focuses on the importance of leftover spaces for public life in Berlin—a theme he has recently revisited in Spaces of Uncertainty: Berlin Revisited (2018). Most recently, he has co-edited What is Critical Urbanism: Urban Research as Pedagogy (2022), and is currently co-editing (with Ernest Sewordor) a journal issue of on “How Urban Africa Challenges the Coloniality of Infrastructure.”
Cupers leads the SNF-funded project, How Infrastructure Shaped Territory in Africa, and co-directs (with Orit Halpern and Claudia Mareis) the Sinergia project Governing through Design: An Interdisciplinary Phenomenon. As part of this project, he co-coordinates (with Laura Nkula-Wenz) South Designs: Planetary Futures. Together with PI Bilgin Ayata, he co-coordinated the SNIS-funded project, Infrastructure Space and the Future of Migration Management (2018-2021).
Cupers received a B.Sc. and M.Sc in Architecture from the Catholic University of Leuven (Belgium), studied photography and cultural theory at Goldsmiths College (London), and received his Ph.D. in architectural and urban history from Harvard University in 2010. He taught in the United States before co-founding the University of Basel’s Urban Studies division in 2015.
CV of Kenny Cupers (PDF, 186 KB)