Born and raised in Munich/Germany, I graduated with a Meisterschüler (Master of Fine Arts) from the University of the Arts Berlin and an MA in Urban Planning from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). I completed my PhD in History and Theory of Architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2006.

Before joining the Mac in 2010, I taught at the Center for Metropolitan Studies, Berlin Technical University and worked for the German Federal Institute for Research on Construction, Urban Affairs and Spatial Development (BBSR). I am also the book review editor-in-chief for the journal Planning Perspectives (published by Routledge).

My scholarly work is situated at the interstices between architectural and urban history. I am particularly interested in the shift of urban paradigms in Europe and North America in the late twentieth century. This includes the criticism against tower block housing and the modernist, functionally separated city since the 1960s as well as the genesis of post-modern concepts and typologies such as the compact city, the post-industrial city, place marketing, urban design, neo-historical architecture, or New Urbanism.

I am also interested in the theories that influenced architects in the twentieth century, including the Frankfurt School (Walter Benjamin, Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer), postcolonial theory, and post-structualist philosophy (Michel Foucault, Jean Baudrillard).

Other research interests include:
- the relation between architecture and social, cultural, and political forces
- urban planning history in the early twentieth century
- architectural and planning history in Berlin
- the “re-invention” of Glasgow since the 1980s
- mass housing as a global phenomenon – including examples from Paris, Moscow, Berlin, Chicago, Brasilia, Mumbai, and Shanghai
- self-built informal housing in European cities
- architecture under socialism, particularly in East Berlin
- discourses on historic preservation and identity