Dr Günter Gassner

Overview

I am interested in a critical and creative exploration of cities, space, and architecture. My research cuts across spatial practices, social theory, and political philosophy. I focus on relationships between politics and aesthetics, history and power, and urban visions and visualisations.

In my latest research monograph Ruined Skylines: Aesthetics, Politics and London's Towering Cityscape (Routledge, 2020; paperback 2021) 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 and make a case for reanimating urban politics as an art of the possible.

I am currently setting up a project that explores relationships between fascism and urbanism. What does 'city making' mean and imply at a time when the extreme right is on the rise and the populist far right is becoming increasingly mainstream? Examining relationships between materiality, racism, and nationalism, I am particularly interested in fascism's conservatism and in interconnections between the liberal city and the fascist city. Theoretical starting points include Benjamin's aestheticisation of politics thesis and Deleuze and Guattari's account of microfascism.

I joined the School of Geography and Planning in 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. Before obtaining a PhD from the LSE, I practiced as an architect and urban designer in Austria, Spain, and the UK.