Research and artistic development

The Institute of Architecture and Culture engages in both scientific research and artistic development, focusing on architecture as a project embedded in cultures and broader societal contexts. Our work with architecture revolves around how we relate to the existing, how we build anew, and how we create meaningful environments for contemporary and future ways of life.

We understand architecture as an artistic, political, and historically rooted phenomenon, and through scientific research and artistic development, we aim to identify, promote, and cultivate a vibrant building culture. Our work includes cultural heritage, transformation, restoration, architectural theory, and architectural history. We are deeply engaged in the creation, analysis, and significance of works, places, and ecologies. We explore the relationship between architecture and other art forms, as well as fundamental architectural questions such as poetics, tectonics, resources, representation, typology, and didactics.

The institute’s scientific research and artistic development strive for relevance in light of pressing contemporary challenges, polycrises, and sustainability in a broad sense. Research and artistic development continuously inform the content of teaching within the institute’s programs and other educational activities at the Royal Danish Academy.

The Institute of Architecture and Culture hosts the Center for Sustainable Building Culture and is a co-founder of the research clusters Architecture, Strategy and Politics, Meaning and Measure in Architecture, and the Housing Research Cluster. We collaborate with Danish and international research and educational institutions, professional practices, public authorities, foundations, and more. We aim to be a unifying environment within the field, for example as initiators of the international biennale Works+Words and as publishers of the journal Magazine for Architecture and Culture.