Ráhel Gyöngyvér Györffy, Dipl.-Ing. (Univ.)
Dottoranda
Ráhel Gyöngyvér Győrffy is an architect and architectural theorist. As part of the research group AC(H)E: Art Histories, Catastrophes, Heritage, Ecologies (Department Gerhard Wolf) at the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz, she is researching the architectural reconstructions following the earthquakes in the Belice Valley (Sicily, 1968) and in Skopje (North Macedonia/Yugoslavia, 1963) at the intersection of memory, architecture, and the representation of trauma in artistic practice.
She studied architecture at the TU Munich and the Arts University of Bournemouth. In her dissertation Ugly, Cute and Uncanny: A Critical Theory of Reconstructivism in Post-Socialist Transformation she examines the phenomenon of contemporary architectural reconstructivism and the challenging position of (late) modernist built heritage in Central and Eastern Europe. Her research focuses on memory and architecture, architectural reconstructions after collective traumas such as wars and natural disasters (primarily in Central and Eastern Europe and Italy), and copies, simulations, and reproductions of and in architecture. In addition to teaching at the Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design (Budapest), she was a university assistant at the Institute for Architectural Theory, Art and Cultural Studies at the TU Graz and a research associate at the Department of Architectural Theory at the TU Berlin. She is a member of the Network Architekturwissenschaft (NAW) and co-editor of the series Forum Architekturwissenschaft. In 2024, she co-organized the Architecturetheory Days (together with UdK Berlin) and in 2025 the conference Zukunftsversprechen Architektur: Moderne nach 1945.
- The city and constructions of urban identity
- Urban topographies of overwriting and displacement
- Architecture as representation
- Post-war modernism and late modernism
- Historicism and neo-historicism
- Reconstructions, mimesis, copies and simulacra in architecture
Gleiter J. H./Győrffy R. Gy. (forthcoming) (eds.): Architektur Design Kunst. Berliner Utopien der 1950er Jahre, Berlin Universities Publishing, Berlin.
ARTICLES AND BOOK CHAPTERS
Győrffy R. Gy. (forthcoming): »Wenn ein Reisender in einer Winternacht. Verdrängung und Leere in Carlo Levis Bericht seiner Deutschlandreise im Jahr 1958« in Gleiter, J. H./Győrffy R. Gy. (eds.): Architektur Design Kunst. Berliner Utopien der 1950er Jahre, Berlin Universities Publishing, Berlin, pp. 35-59.
Győrffy, R. Gy. (2025): »The Inner-City Passage System in Budapest and the Post-Socialist Transformation of the Cityscape. Three Projects in the Framework of Late-Socialist Phantasmagories« in: Architektúra & Urbanizmus 59/1-2, pp. 18-37. DOI:https://doi.org/10.31577/archandurb.2025.59.1-2.2
Bittenbinder, F./Győrffy, R. (2024): »Overwriting A Difficult Past. Built-Legacies and the Search for New Identities in Budapest« in: Tamborrino, R. (ed.) Città che si adattanno? Adaptive cities? Book 1. Adaptability or Adaptive Inability in the Face of Change, AISU International, Turin, pp. 112-127.
Győrffy, R. (2023): »Ikonoklasmus, Musealisierung und Hyperrealität. Eine Annäherung an den architektonischen Rekonstruktivismus in Mittel- und Osteuropa« in: Dinççaǧ Kahveci, A. et al. (eds.): Censored? Conflicted Concepts of Cultural Heritage, Bauhaus-Universitätsverlag, Weimar, pp. 48-63.
Győrffy, R. (2022): »MINIATURE Ugly Buildings: Reflections on the Reconstructivist Trend in Central and Eastern Europe« in: Schalk, M. et al: Dimensions. Journal of Architectural Knowledge, 3 (2): Species of Theses and Other Pieces, pp. 161-179. https://www.transcript-open.de/doi/10.14361/dak-2022-0311
Győrffy, R. (2021): »Towards a Potemkin City: Motifs and Consequences of Reconstructivism in Central- and Eastern Europe« in: Benkő, M. (ed.): DOCONF 2021. Facing Post-Socialist Urban Heritage: Proceedings, BME Department of Urban Planning and Design, Budapest, pp. 158-169.
BOOK REVIEWS
Győrffy, Gy. (2024): »gleiter’s universum (architektur) di Jörg H. Gleiter« in: U+D urbanform and design. International Journal on Urban Morphology, tab edizioni, Roma, pp. 240-241. DOI: 10.36158/2384-9207.UD 21.2024.034
Győrffy, R. (2023): »Stadt entwerfen?/Designing the City?« in: GAM 19: Professionalism, jovis, Berlin, pp. 153-155.
»Wenn ein Reisender in einer Winternacht – Verdrängung und Leere in Carlo Levis Bericht seiner Deutschlandreise im Jahr 1958«, Zukunftsversprechen Architektur. Moderne nach 1945, Fachgebiet Architekturtheorie, TU Berlin, 26- 27 June 2025
»From Late-Socialist Porosity to the Smooth Surfaces of Neo-Liberalism. The Transformation of the Inner- City Passage-System in Budapest«, Porosità della città: Porosità dell’immagine. Walter Benjamin e Napoli (1925-2025), Bibliotheca Hertziana Max-Planck-Institut für Kunstgeschichte, Rome, 10-11 April 2025
»Overwriting a Difficult Past. Built Legacies and the Search for New Identities in Budapest« (together with Franz Bittenbinder, PoliMi), 10th AISU Congress Adaptive Cities Through the Post-Pandemic Lens. Times and Challenges in Urban History, Session: History, Remembrance and Oblivion within Urban Transformation Processes in the Contemporary Age. Memorialisation, Cancel Culture, Difficult Heritage, Turin, 06-10 September 2022
»Zwischen Ikonoklasmus und Nostalgie. Rekonstruktivismus in Mittel- und Osteuropa. Kuratorische Praxis, Cancel Culture oder Musealisierung? Eine Annäherung« Censored? Conflicted Concepts of Cultural Heritage, 5. Jahrestagung des DGF Graduiertenkollegs 2227 Identität und Erbe, Bauhaus Universität, Weimar, 25.-26.11.2021
»Towards a Potemkin City: Motifs and Consequences of Reconstructivism in Central- and Eastern Europe« DOCONF 2021. Facing Post Socialist Urban Heritage, BME Department of Urban Planning and Design, Budapest, 08.-09.10.2021
»The Aesthetics of Concealment in Architecture« Wildness – City – Virtual Reality, Conference of the Research Centre for Aesthetics, Nature and Environment (RCANE), Department of Aesthetics, ELTE Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, 19-20 March 2021