
Website:
Specialization:
Areas of Concentration: Modern German religious architecture, Historic preservation, Landscape studies
Faculty Advisor: Volker M. Welter
M.A. Thesis: "The Role of Museums and Historic Preservation in the Creation of German National Identity, Illustrated in the Magazine Die Denkmalpflege, 1899-1922," completed 2022
Bio:
Alexander Luckmann is a second-year M.A./Ph.D. student specializing in histories of architecture, preservation, and landscape. His primary research focus is German religious architecture since the start of the 19th century, addressing the continued importance of religious building projects in a supposedly secular society. His additional interests include historic preservation, American churches and real estate, California modernism, and the German-American monk and architect Cajetan Baumann.
Before coming to UCSB, Alexander worked as a landscape designer at Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates in New York City, helping design waterfront public parks across the United States and Europe. He has also been the Architecture + Design Curatorial Intern at SFMOMA, conducting research for the 2018 exhibition The Sea Ranch: Architecture, Environment, and Idealism. He graduated from Vassar College with a BA in Art History, and received the Regents Fellowship for the 2021-22 academic year.
Publications:
"A Forensic Architecture exhibition in Germany uses real life narratives and architecture to document violence and systemic racism," The Architect's Newspaper, July 28, 2022.
"Asphalt and Sand: A Material History of Extraction and Consumption," Cleveland Review of Books, May 13, 2022.
"Who is Paying for the Public Life?," Slate, November 2, 2021.