Dr. Rebecca Carrai
Borsista post-doc
Rebecca Carrai is a postdoctoral researcher at the Lise Meitner Group “Coded Objects”. She obtained her PhD in Architecture from the Faculty of Architecture, KU Leuven, Belgium, where she also co-taught the course “Who Does Architecture?”. Her doctoral project, IKEA-Land: A Counter-History of Domestic Space, uses the world’s largest furnishing company as a lens to delve into the intersection of design and architecture history, media and capitalist studies, material culture, and philosophy. She utilises multiple methodologies to explore the formation of domesticity through interconnected relationships between architecture and consumption, while including questions of gender and production.
Rebecca was a visiting scholar at Princeton University (2023), at KTH Stockholm (2022), and at the Architectural Association in London (2019-2021), where she co-led the summer school “AAVS Think Tank”. Currently, she is the co-chair of the European Architectural History Network (EAHN) Interest Group titled “Building Word Image”. Her work is featured in several academic publications and received funding, among others, from FWO, the Research Foundation Flanders, SAH, the Society of Architectural Historians, and DHS, the Design History Society.
• 20th-century architectural and design history and theory
• consumerism and material culture
• capitalist studies
• large corporations
• media
• domestic interiors and domesticity
• gender and feminist theories
• displays and exhibition design
“Borderless Design,” Panel chaired with Fredie Floré (KU Leuven, Belgium) at the forthcoming DHS, Design History Society, Conference in Canterbury, UK. September 6, 2024.
“Media and Objects in the Home,” Interest Group meeting chaired with Gregorio Astengo (ETH, Zurich) during the EAHN2024 Conference in Athens. June 19, 2024.
“It’s a Match!” on Dispersed Objects. Seminar held by the “Coded Objects” Lise Meitner Group at the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz. Speakers: Rebecca Carrai and Robin Schuldenfrei. April 17, 2024.
“Domesticity and Capital,” Seminar and Workshop co-led with Mette Johanne Hübschmann and Masashi Kajita. Master Program: Spatial Design. KADK. Royal Danish Academy. Copenhagen, February 2023.
“Displays and Stage Design at IKEA (1970s-80s). Tomas Jelinek and his Learning from the Viennese,” Paper presented at the 2023 DHS, Design History Society, Conference. Porto, September, 2023
“The IKEA Suburb. A Catalogued Imagery of Single-family Housing,” Paper presented at the International Symposium of Politecnico di Milano, “What next with mom’s and dad’s house?,” organised by Martino Tattara and Federico Zanfi. Milan, September 2022.
“From mail-order to e-tailing: IKEA’s evolution in retail spaces,” Paper presented at SAH2023, 76th Annual International Conference of the Society of Architectural Historians. Session Beyond the Mall: Retail Landscapes of the Late Twentieth Century. Montréal, April 2023.
“Cutting through Italian domesticity. IKEA’s advertising and the Italian domestic discourse (1980-90).” Paper presented at EAHN2022 Conference. Madrid, June 2022.
“Architecture as Capital,” Online conversation with Elizabeth Keslacy and Jeff Kruth, Miami University, US. Moderated by Catalina Meija Moreno, CSM. December 1, 2021.
“Let’s play the architect. IKEA: The other architectural agent,” Paper presented at EAHN2021 Conference. Interest group ‘Building Word Image,’ session “Architecture not Building. Actors at the Margins.” Chaired by Catalina Mejía Moreno and Anne Hultzsch. Online, June 2021.
PhD Fellowship for Fundamental Research. The Research Foundation Flanders, FWO.
(November 2019 - December 2023)
FWO Travel Grant for Research Stay Abroad
(September 2022 - October 2022)
KU Leuven’s Travel Grant for VSRC, Visiting Student Research Collaborator, at SoA, School of Architecture, Princeton University
(April - May 2023)
DHS, Design History Society Conference Scholarship
(September 2023)
SAH, Society of Architectural Historians, Travel Fellowship
(December 2022 - April 2023)
Johan Verbeke Fonds for artistic research
(September - December 2023)
Among the six finalists selected for BIO 26, Ljubjana Design Biennal
(May 2019 - Feb 2020)
Honors and publication for the MA Thesis, Finn Juhl, architect. University of Florence.
(December 2017)
Books
Rebecca Carrai, Finn Juhl, l’architetto, (Florence: Didapress, 2020).
Articles and Book Chapters
Rebecca Carrai, “The IKEA suburb. A Catalogued Imagery of Single-family Housing.” in What Next for Mom and Dad’s House? Essays on the single-family housing type and its future, edited by Martino Tattara and Federico Zanfi, (Leipzig: Spector Books, forthcoming).
Rebecca Carrai, “Architecture of Indeterminacy,” in Software Into Hardware – Architecture and Datasets, edited by Klaus Platzgummer, Anh Hoffmann, Lisa Wesseler and Jann Wiegand. AA Publications, (New York; Barcelona: Actar Press, forthcoming).
Rebecca Carrai, “Degrowth to Architecture,” STOÀ Journal, Open Seminar. Conference proceedings from the symposium held at Politecnico di Milano, October 6, 2023. Printed and online via: https://files.cargocollective.com/c979116/24_sto--open-seminar.pdf
Rebecca Carrai, “Fiction. IKEA’s saleable living for pandemic life,” in Interiors in the Era of Covid 19, edited by Pat Kirkham, Stephen Knott, Penny Sparke, Jana Scholze and Ersi Ioannidou, (London: Bloomsbury, 2023), 167-180.
Rebecca Carrai, “The materialisation of Bauhaus in IKEA’s Democratic Design,” in Bauhaus x IKEA. Legacies of Modernism, edited by Thea Brejzek, Rochus Urban Hinkel and Lawrence Wallen, (Sydney: URO publisher, 2022), 69-89.
Rebecca Carrai, “Air on Sale,” Materia Arquitectura, “Air,” No. 22, (August 2022): 110-131, online via: http://materiaarquitectura.com/index.php/MA/article/view/520/531
Rebecca Carrai, “Normalising the Home,” sITA, studies in History and Theory of Architecture, “Ideas at Home,” No. 9 (2021): 29-50, printed and online: https://sita.uauim.ro/article/9-carrai-normalizing-the-home-a