This fall, Daniela Fabricius, an architectural theorist and historian, joined the Weitzman School of Design as an assistant professor in the Department of Architecture. Fabricius had her first teaching job at Penn more than 15 years ago, under former chair of architecture Detlef Mertins. At Penn, she is teaching a course titled Architecture and Labor while working on two books, including “The Ethics of Calculation: Architecture and Rationalism in Postwar Germany.”
“I’m teaching a course on labor and architecture. There’s a historical component that starts in the 19th century and looks at the architecture that organizes labor, like factories, and how Taylorization and other forms of spatial design and spatial control were used to make labor more efficient,” explains Fabricius. “It goes a bit into modernist architecture and to some extent art and how there were some movements like the Russian avant-garde or the Bauhaus in Germany where there was also interest in designing for industrial labor—for the working class.”
Her teaching also focuses on women, labor, feminism and questions of labor in the household. Additionally, she delves into more contemporary issues like migrant workers and “the highly exploited labor used in the construction industry today, and how digital tools and digital design have changed the relationship to labor, both on the construction and design side. The students and I also talk a lot about work/life balance issues in architecture and how they see themselves as laborers. They are very interested in talking about that.”
Fabricius unpacks what rationalism means in the architectural context. “In Germany, rationalism becomes something that’s seen as morally and ethically positive. It’s seen as a way of moving forward from fascism and its myths and lies. There’s something about it that’s seen as compatible with democracy.”
Her writing analyzes architecture and the very specific cultural and political construct of postwar West Germany. “The discussions around architecture at this time are really interesting and they’re impregnated with the ethical anxiety around how to move forward, and what the role of modernism is. This issue of rationalism and rationalization is kind of at the center of that.”
Read more at Weitzman News.
