ProfessorDEBORAH Barnstone

Professor Deborah Ascher Barnstone is professor and head of architecture at The University of Sydney.  She is both an architectural historian and a registered architect in North Rhine, Westfalia, Germany. She holds a B. A. degree cum laude with High Honors from Barnard College, Columbia University; M. Arch degree from Columbia University; and PhD from Delft University of Technology. She has held academic positions at University of Technology Sydney, Washington State University, Ball State University, Fachhochschule Cologne, and the Boston Architectural Center.

Barnstone's primary research interest is in 20th century early modern art, architecture, and culture.  She has a particular passion for dismantling historical myths by re-examining received histories in order to uncover alternate interpretations of the past.  Much of her research has focused on art and architecture in Germany during the interwar period because Germany was an important site of early modern innovation. Beyond the Bauhaus: Cultural Modernity in Breslau, 1918 - 1933 describes the largely forgotten but richly innovative cultural scene in the former German city of Breslau (Wroclaw today).  Studies of the influence of Weimar culture on early modernism have focused almost exclusively on Berlin and the Dessau Bauhaus but advances in Bresalu affected nearly every creative and intellectural field. The Break with the Past: Avant-Garde Architecture in Germany, 1910 - 1925 interrogates the myth that early modern practitioners dispelled with all aspects of traditional and historic aesthetics. The Color of Modernism: Paints, Pigments and the Transformation of Modern Architecture in 1920s Germany similarly unpacks, and disproves, the pervasive myth that early modern architecture was white.  Scholarly collections that she has edited deal with similar themes: Modernist Aesthetics in Transition: Visual Culture of the Weimar Republic and Nazi Germany argues for the complexity and shifting nature of aesthetics, rather than clear categories. Barnstone has recently begun work on Australian architecture of the interwar period.

As a registered architect and practiitioner, Barnstone also has a long-standing interest in sutainability in architectural design.  She still runs a small practice in Sydney working primarily on single-family homes and custom furniture.  She worked for German architect, Erich Schneider-Wessling, a pioneer in sustainable architecture. She has worked on projects looking at novel ways of recycling materials, designing with new sustainable materials like plastic wood composites, and experimenting with passive heating and cooling.

She is co-commissioning editor of the Visual Culture in German Contexts Series at Bloomsbury Academic, chair of the Modernism Collaborative in Australia and New Zealand, and Australian Representative to the International Union of Architects.