Dr Günter Gassner

I am a Lecturer in Urban Design interested in a critical exploration of cities, space and architecture. My research is at the intersection of urban design, social theory and political philosophy. I am particularly interested in relationships between politics and aesthetics, history and power, urban visions and visualisations, and I also investigate the political agency of architects, urban designers, and other design-related professionals in contemporary urbanisation processes. My work contributes to the fields of Radical and Urban Geography and combines empirical analyses with detailed discussions of theoretical concepts. I engage with the work of critical theorists who are commonly associated with the Frankfurt School and, more recently, with the work of Nietzsche, Foucault, Arendt, Rancière, and Deleuze and Guattari.

In my reserach monograph Ruined Skylines: Aesthetics, Politics and London's Towering Cityscape (Routledge, 2020) I examine the urban skyline as a space for radical politics. Developing a critique of the construction of more and more speculative towers as well as a critique of the claim that these towers ruin the historic cityscape, I explore ruination as a political appropriation of the commodified and financialised cityscape, making a case for reanimating urban politics as an art of the possible.

I am currently setting up a new research project that investigates relationships between fascism and urbanism. Inspired by Benjamin's 'aestheticisation of politics' thesis and urged by the rise of right-wing populism and extremism, I aim to explore the inherently fascistic nature of different urban developments.

I joined the School of Geography and Planning in September 2016 and previously taught at the University of the Arts London, Central Saint Martins and in the Sociology Department at the London School of Economics (LSE). I obtained a PhD from the LSE on the topic of Formalised Vision in the City and hold a Master in Architecture from the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. I practiced as an architect in Vienna, Barcelona and in London for Foreign Office Architects (FOA) where I was project architect and leader of the office-internal high-rise unit. I also worked on a comparative analysis of public spaces in London, Paris and Barcelona (sponsored by KPF).