Sang Pil Lee - Hans Hollein’s Expanded Environments: Austrian and American Architectural Exchange in the First Electronic Age, 1956–1976

Sang Pil Lee received a 2019 Botstiber grant to pursue research in Vienna for his project “Hans Hollein’s Expanded Environments: Austrian and American Architectural Exchange in the First Electronic Age, 1956–1976.”

This project investigates Viennese architect Hollein’s cultural exchanges with America and his interrelated endeavors to revive Austrian avant-garde architecture. Inspired by novel modes of thinking such as those developed by Gestalt theorists, advances in electronic technology and the emerging field of media theory, Hollein forwarded a new design theory that sought to create new living environments during the post war period.  This project will contribute to improving our understanding of transnational culture, spatial conceptions of the environment in architecture and urbanism, and contemporary articulations of smart cities.

Sang Pil Lee is a PhD candidate in History and Theory of Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania.  He researches and writes about postwar urban and architectural history and theory with a focus on the interrelationship between media, post-industrialism, and the development of environmental conceptions.