Institute of Art History

Architectural History and Preservation

Research interests

  • History and theory of architecture since the early modern period, with a focus on gender studies and feminist theory
  • History of art and architecture in the MENA region (Middle East and North Africa) since 1800, especially the Arab Gulf states
  • Architecture, urban planning and urban visual culture in the context of petroleum industrialization (Petroculture Studies, Energy Humanities)
  • Historiography of architecture
  • History, technology and conservation of flat glass and architectural stained glass

Activities

Vorträge (Stand Mai 2023) (PDF, 149KB)

 

Organization of conferences, workshops and lecture series

2022

Panel “New Petroleum Perspectives from the Global South: Visualising and Connecting Oil Cultures of the Middle East and Latin America,” Petrocultures Conference 2022, Stavanger, Norway, 24– 27 August 2022, with Mattin Biglari, Nelida Fuccaro, María Esperanza Rojo Jiménez, Mónica Salas Landa and Sanaz Sohrabi (OCMELA)

Conference “Architecture: Shaped Environment, Medium of Representation, Material Archive,” University of Bern, 12–14 May 2022, with Bernd Nicolai and Sarah M. Schlachetzki
2021 Conference “Glass in Architecture from the Pre- to the Post-Industrial Era: Production, Use and Conservation,” Romont, 5–6 November 2021, cooperation with the Vitrocentre Romont and the Bern Academy of the Arts (HKB), Department Conservation and Restauration
2019 Workshop “Lifeworlds of Environmental Imaginaries and the Concern,” Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Trondheim, 14–15 October 2019, with Arthur Mason, Institute of Social Anthropology
2017 Workshop “Visuality and Methodology,” Academic Day, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin Graduate School of Muslim Cultures and Societies, July 2017
2015

Conference “XVII. Nachwuchskolloquium für Kunstgeschichte in der Schweiz,” University of Zurich, 6–7 November 2015, with Antonie Bassing-Kontopidis, Charlotte Matter and Filine Wagner

Workshop “Auratische Räume der Moderne. Zum performativen Charakter von Versammlungsstätten,” University of Zurich, 12–13 November 2015, with Beata Labuhn, Louise Malcom, Anna Minta and Frank Schmitz

Lecture Series “MANIFESTATIONEN! Architekturkonzepte zwischen Aura und Repräsentation nach 1945,” University of Zurich, autumn term 2015, with Beata Labuhn, Louise Malcom and Anna Minta
2009

Conference “77. Kunsthistorischer Studierendenkongresses (KSK),” University of Hamburg, 26–29 November 2009, with student representatives of Art History

Publications

Monographs

Laura Hindelang, Glaskunst am Bau und Intermedialität. Das Atelier Stäubli in St. Gallen, (Glaskunst: Ausstellungen des Vitromusée Romont), Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter 2022.

Laura Hindelang, Iridescent Kuwait: Petro-Modernity and Urban Visual Culture since the Mid-Twentieth Century, Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter 2022. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110714739

Edited volumes and special issues

Sophie Wolf, Laura Hindelang, Francine Giese and Anne Krauter (eds.), Glass in Architecture from the Pre- to the Post-Industrial Era: Production, Use and Conservation, Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter. [peer-reviewed; expected for 2024]

Bettina Gräf and Laura Hindelang (eds.), Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication, 2022, Bd. 15, Nr. 3, special issue: Urban Cultures in the Gulf from a Historical Media Perspective. https://brill.com/view/journals/mjcc/15/3/mjcc.15.issue-3.xml [peer-reviewed]

Laura Hindelang and Nadia Radwan (eds.), Nostalgia and Belonging in Art and Architecture from the MENA Region: Essay Collection, Manazir Blog, 18 October 2021; student publishing project as part of a MA research seminar. https://manazir.art/blog/nostalgia-and-belonging-art-and-architecture-mena-region/

Laura Hindelang (ed.), bauforschungonline-journal, 2019, no. 5, special issue: Re-Grouping, Re-Using. The Present and Future of Religious Spaces in Europe. [peer-reviewed] Open Access

Antonie Bassing-Kontopidis, Laura Hindelang, Charlotte Matter and Filine Wagner (eds.), Into the Wild. Art and Architecture in a Global Context, München: edition metzel 2018.

Publications in international peer-reviewed scientific journals

Bettina Gräf and Laura Hindelang, The Transregional Illustrated magazine al-‘Arabi: Knowledge Production and Cultural Imaginations in the 1950s and 1960s, in: Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication, 2022, vol. 15, no. 3, 301–328. https://doi.org/10.1163/18739865-01503002

Bettina Gräf and Laura Hindelang, No Spaces Without History. Transdisciplinary Approaches to the Gulf Cities between Media Studies, Area Studies and Art History, in: Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication, 2022, vol. 15, no. 3, 219–239. https://doi.org/10.1163/18739865-01503001

Laura Hindelang, Oil Media. Changing Portraits of Petroleum in Visual Culture between the US, Kuwait, and Switzerland, Centaurus, 2021, vol. 63, no. 4, 675–694. https://doi.org/10.1111/1600-0498.12418

Laura Hindelang, Editorial: Re-grouping, Re-using. The Present and Future of Religious Spaces in Europe, bauforschungsonline-journal, 2019, no. 5, 3–10. Open Access

Laura Hindelang, Wüstenblume und Falke für Abu Dhabi. Schweizer Entwürfe einer identitätsstiftenden Architektur der 1970er Jahre, kritische berichte, 2016, vol. 44, no. 2, 142–155. https://doi.org/10.11588/kb.2016.2.88908

Laura Hindelang, Bauen in Bagdad um 1958: Wenn Bauvorhaben Revolutionen überstehen, bauforschungonline-journal, 2015, vol. 1, 48–54, https://doi.org/10.5167/uzh-119149

Peer-reviewed conference proceedings

Laura Hindelang, Photographing Crude in the Desert: Sight and Sense among Oilmen, in: Nelida Fuccaro and Mandana Limbert (eds.), Life Worlds of Middle Eastern Oil. Histories and Ethnographies of Black Gold, Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Press 2023, 57–86.

Laura Hindelang, Kuwait is the Past, Dubai is the Present. A Comparative Historiography of Spectacular Urbanism and Architectural Promotion in the Gulf, in: Nourane Ben Azzouna, Sabiha Göloglu and Markus Ritter (eds.), The History of Material Cultures and Visual Arts in Islamic Lands, (Beiträge zur islamischen Kunst und Archäologie, vol. 8), Wiesbaden: Reichert 2022, 209–222.

Murtaza Vali with María Esperanza Rojo Jiménez, Mattin Biglari, Nelida Fuccaro, Laura Hindelang and Sanaz Sohrabi, Petromobilites in the Global South. Roundtable Conversation, in: Anne Szefer Karlsen and Helga Nyman (eds.), Experiences of Oil, Stavanger: Museumsforlaget 2022, 50–71.

Laura Hindelang, Precious Property. Infrastructures of Water and Petroleum in Kuwait, in: Carola Hein (ed.), Oil Spaces: Exploring the Global Petroleumscape, Abingdon: Routledge 2021, 159–175. www.doi.org/10.4324/9780367816049-12

Book chapters

Sophie Wolf and Laura Hindelang, A Brief History of the Production and Use of Glass in Architecture, in: Sophie Wolf, Laura Hindelang, Francine Giese and Anne Krauter (eds.), Glass in Architecture from the Pre- to the Post-Industrial Era: Production, Use and Conservation, Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter. [peer-reviewed; accepted; expected for 2024]

Laura Hindelang, Mobile Images: Stamps as Branding Tools in the Gulf States, in: Steffen Wippel (ed.), Branding the Middle East. Communication Strategies and Image Building from Qom to Casablanca, Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter 2023 [accepted].

Laura Hindelang, Das Glasmaleratelier Heinrich Stäubli. Zwischen St. Galler Werkstatt und Glaskunst am Bau im Thurgau, in: Amt für Denkmalpflege Thurgau (ed.), Licht- und Farbenzauber – Glasmalerei im Thurgau, (Denkmalpflege im Thurgau, vol. 23), Basel: Schwabe 2022, 142–149.

Laura Hindelang, Im Land des Meeres. Der Persische Golf im Spiegel zeitgenössischer Kunst, in: Antonie Bassing-Kontopidis, Laura Hindelang, Charlotte Matter and Filine Wagner (eds.), Into the Wild. Art and Architecture in a Global Context, Munich: edition metzel 2018, 63–72.

Antonie Bassing-Kontopidis, Laura Hindelang, Charlotte Matter and Filine Wagner, Kunst und Architektur im globalen Kontext. Ein konzeptueller Ansatz, in: Bassing-Kontopidis, Hindelang, Matter and Wagner (eds.), Into the Wild. Art and Architecture in a Global Context, Munich: edition metzel 2018, 6–14.

Martin Fröhlich and Laura Hindelang, Nationale Parlamentsbauten bis 1945, in: Anna Minta and Bernd Nicolai (eds.), Parlamentarische Repräsentationen. Das Bundeshaus in Bern im Kontext internationaler Parlamentsbauten und nationaler Strategien, (Neue Berner Schriften zur Kunst, vol. 14, edited by Birgitt Borkopp-Restle, Christine Göttler, Norberto Gramaccini, Bernd Nicolai, Peter J. Schneemann), Bern: Peter Lang 2014, 283–302.

CV

Since 05/2023Assistant professor tenure track
Chair of the History of Architecture and Preservation and director of the Master program “Monument Preservation and Monument Management” at the University of Bern
03/2019 – 04/2023Scientific assistant (Post-Doc researcher), University of Bern, Institute of Art History
09/2020 – 07/2022Scientific collaborator, Vitrocentre Romont (Swiss research center for stained glass and glass art); project leader of the third-party funded project “Das Glasmaleratelier Stäubli in St. Gallen. Intermedialität und Glaskunst am Bau im 20. Jahrhundert”
10/2016 – 01/2020Doctor of Philosophy in Art History in a Global Context, Freie Universität Berlin Thesis: “Iridescent Kuwait. Investigating the Image World of Petro-Modernity,” advised by Prof. Dr. Wendy Shaw and Prof. Dr. Ulrike Freitag
10/2016 – 02/2019Doctoral fellow, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin Graduate School of Muslim Cultures and Societies; field and archival research in Great Britain and in the Arabian Gulf region (Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, United Arab Emirates)
01/2016 – 03/2016Visiting Researcher, American University of Kuwait, Center for Gulf Studies; and New York University Abu Dhabi Libraries
02/2015 – 07/2015Scientific assistant in monument preservation and building research, office of Michael Hanak, Zurich
10/2014 – 08/2016Scientific assistant (Pre-Doc researcher) in the SNSF funded project “Holy Spaces in Modernity,” University of Zurich, Institute of Art History, Prof. Dr. Anna Minta
09/2012 – 09/2014Master of Arts in Art History (Major) and Sociology (Minor), University of Bern Thesis: “Bagdads urbane Transformation. Die 1950er Jahre zwischen Monarchie und Republik, städtebaulichen Visionen und Nation Building,” supervised by Prof. Dr. Bernd Nicolai
10/2011 – 09/2012Year abroad at the University of Jordan, Language Center & Department of Islamic Studies; and at Birzeit University, Westbank/Palestine, Palestine and Arabic Studies Program
10/2008 – 09/2011Bachelor of Arts in Art History (Major) and Sociology (Minor), University of Hamburg Thesis: “Eine Frage der Form. Informelle Architektur, Selbstbau und Ökologisierung am Beispiel von Quinta Monroy, Chile,” supervised by Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Kemp and PD Dr. Hendrik Ziegler

Services & Memberships

Since 2023 Member of the executive board of the Institute of Art History

President of the Academic Committee of the Vitrocentre Romont

Committee member of the doctoral program Interdisciplinary Cultural Studies, Graduate School of the Arts and Humanities, Walter Benjamin Kolleg UniBE

Member of the Scientific Committee of Open House Bern
Since 2022 Associated Researcher, Centre Français de Recherche de la Péninsule Arabique, Kuwait
Since 2020 Founding member of the transdisciplinary research group OCMELA (Oil Cultures of the Middle East and Latin America)
Since 2019 Co-chair of the Ernst Herzfeld Award committee, Ernst Herzfeld Society for Studies in Islamic Art and Archaeology
Since 2019 Editorial board member of the Platinum Open Access Manazir Journal
Since 2019 Board member of Manazir—Swiss Platform for the Study of Visual Arts, Architecture and Heritage in the MENA Region
Member Deutsche Arbeitsgemeinschaft Vorderer Orient (DAVO)| Deutscher Verband für Kunstgeschichte e.V. | Berner Heimatschutz, Region Bern Mittelland | Ernst Herzfeld-Gesellschaft zur Erforschung der Islamischen Kunst und Archäologie | Gesellschaft für Schweizerische Kunstgeschichte GSK | Schweizerische Gesellschaft Mittlerer Osten und Islamische Kulturen SGMOIK | Ulmer Verein - Verband für Kunst- und Kulturwissenschaften | Vereinigung der Kunsthistorikerinnen und Kunsthistoriker in der Schweiz VKKS