Ethics and Architecture

The spectrum of questions posed by the relation between ethics and architecture is broad. It spans all the way from the reception of Vitruvius and Aristotle in the Trecento, to reflections on the moral dimension of architecture in the eighteenth century, right down to current theories and practices of building.

Languages of Art History

How did conventions of art historical writing come into being across various linguistic traditions, and how have they survived and developed out of inter-linguistic exchange?

Piazza e monumento

Der Platz gilt seit der Antike als Paradigma der Stadt und des Öffentlichen, dessen politische und soziale Bedeutung sich bis in die Gegenwart fortsch...

Rinascimento conteso

'Rinascimento conteso' aims to construct a dialogue with challenges to the historiographical paradigm of a supposedly triumphant Renaissance, responding to sound criticisms of the term’s elitist connotations.

Vasaris Welten und die deutsche kommentierte Ausgabe der 'Vite' in den beiden Editionen von 1550 und 1568

Das Werk und Denken Giorgio Vasaris bildet für die europäische Kunstwissenschaft bis heute das wichtigste Referenzmodell und einen konstanten methodol...

Ecology and Aesthetics. Environmental Approaches in Art History

Ecological and aesthetic theories are intertwined in multiple ways. The project opens a dialogue with archeology, anthropology and history of science concerned with the "anthropocene", rethinking the nature/culture divide in a transcultural perspective, including notions of heritage and sustainability, creation and consumption.

Georgia and the Caucasus: Aesthetics, Art, and Architecture

While most debates regarding intercultural dynamics between Christianity, Islam and Judaism are concerned with the Mediterranean, this project is concentrating on the art and architecture of South Caucasus, an under these premises hardly studied region comprising Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan as well as Georgian and Armenian heritage in Eastern Turkey.

Pompeji als Restaurierungsarchiv und Ausstellungslabor (1748–2014)

Eine natur- und geisteswissenschaftliche Untersuchung der Restaurierungs- und Musealisierungsgeschichte Pompejis verbunden mit dem Ziel der Entwicklung innovativer, nachhaltiger Restaurierungsmaterialien und Verfahren.

Storia dell'arte e catastrofi (I): L'Italia sismica (sta-sis)

Il progetto elabora nuove forme d'impegno della storia dell'arte nel mondo contemporaneo, soprattutto di fronte ai disastrosi eventi sismici che hanno colpito L'Aquila (2009), il territorio emiliano (2012) e il centro Italia (2016), e più in generale considerando le sfide catastrofiche al patrimonio monumentale e artistico.

The Art of Containment

The Art of Containment is a recently started long-term collaborative research and exhibition project. It is concerned with all kinds of vessels and containers, their materiality, shape and decoration, their functions and agency, their biographies and itineraries. The project is the next step in the research focus on concepts and theories, relations and constellations of image and object (Ding/Bild).

Sacred Landscapes:
Between Materiality, Transportability and Narration (Jerusalem Project)

Sacred Landscapes, in particular deserts and mountains are liminal spaces and also places of aesthetic production or response. Their dimensions are material, narrative and iconic, and they are connected to monumental sacred sites. The long-term Jerusalem project is concerned with all these aspects and analyses the ways in which they are intertwined.

Transregional Art Histories
Actors, Spaces, Ecologies from the 13th Century to the Present

Research in this unit focuses on the history of art and of aesthetic practices in transregional and ecological perspectives. With a strong interest in the materiality of art and of artistic practices, it investigates works of art in relation to place, space, and environment.

Art, Dialogue, History: Sources and Practice Discourses of Italian Art from a Historical Perspective

Understanding the complex objects of art history in their material and technical disposition and functionality requires deeper insight into the histor...

Art Histories and Aesthetic Practices. Kunstgeschichte und ästhetische Praktiken

A Berlin based research and fellowship program that questions and transcends traditional disciplinary boundaries in a transcultural, global horizon. By creating a space of dialogue for scholars from all continents, it discusses the potential and contours of a plural history of art.

Bilderfahrzeuge. Warburg's Legacy and the Future of Iconology

Der Forschungsverbund hat zum Ziel, die Migration von Bildern, Artefakten und Ideen aus einer interdisziplinären Perspektive zu erforschen. Dabei geht es besonders um Beziehungen zwischen Kulturen, die sich in Zeit und Ort, Sprache, Religion und politischer Ordnung unterscheiden, und um die theoretischen Implikationen von solchen Migrations-, Transformations- und Interaktionsprozessen.

Connecting Art Histories in the Museum: Africa, Asia, the Mediterranean and Europe, 400-1900

The program combines academic and museum research with curatorship, focusing on artistic and cultural interactions in and between Africa, Asia, the Americas, the Mediterranean and Europe.

Convivencia: Iberian to Global Dynamics (500–1750)

Using the term CONVIVENCIA with a question mark, the project investigates the cooperative and conflictual interactions of different cultural and religious communities in the Iberian "world" from the sixth to the eighteenth centuries, also including comparative studies in other areas.

Il Progetto EUPLOOS

Il Progetto Euploos intende promuovere un dialogo internazionale tra la comunità dei ricercatori e degli studiosi offrendo uno strumento di ricerca in...

The Nomos of Images. Manifestation and Iconology of Law

Images visualise, constitute and ground the Law. Visual media, architecture and design belong to a multiple normative dimension of visuality that render the Law perceptible. The Minerva Research Project investigates in these multiple normative dimensions of visibility, materiality and aesthetics in visual history and juridical practice.

CENOBIUM – A Project for the Multimedia Representation of Romanesque Cloister Capitals in the Mediterranean Region

The aim of the CENOBIUM project is to facilitate, by means of high-resolution digital photography, video, 3D scanning and an interactive web interface, the analysis of the complex dynamics of artistic exchange in the 12th and 13th century.

Photography as Instrument and Medium of Art History

Historic photographic collections created with the purpose of art-historical documentation are also documents of the methods and the history of the discipline.

Photo Archives

'Photo Archives' is an open series of international scholarly activities dedicated to the interaction between photographic archives, photography and academic disciplines.

Etho-Ästhetiken des Visuellen

Die weitreichenden Beziehungen zwischen Kunst, Visualität und Ethik benötigen eine grundlegende Untersuchung. Die Kunst- und Bildgeschichte hat sich d...

Doctoral Projects

Postdoctoral Projects