Architectural History and Theory Guest Lecture, City University of Hong Kong

London migration and the end of empire:
Case study ‘The House of Khadambi Asalache’

Speaker: Dr. Eva Branscome
Associate Professor,  Architectural History and Theory, The Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London, UK

Venue: Y5-304, Yeung Building, City University of Hong Kong
Time: 1:30pm – 2.50pm, Wednesday, March 29, 2023
Zoom: 939 6607 5164
Enquiry: Dr. Charlie Xue, Tel: 3442 7434, bscqx@cityu.edu.hk

London has always been a place of migration. The traces of different populations drawn to this location on the Thames continue to inscribe their identities in the built manifestations of the metropolis, thereby forming London into a world city. These markers are manifest in individual homes and larger districts. From a context of early immigration by Huguenot and then Jewish communities fleeing religious persecution, to migration as a post-colonial consequence of population movements from the British Empire, the idea of London as a cross-cultural clearing house will be discussed as a context for the house built by the Kenyan writer, Khadambi Asalache (1989-2006), which can be understood as the quintessential post-colonial home. This small urban home was only begrudgingly taken on by the National Trust in 2009.

The Speaker:
Dr Eva Branscome has been working at the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London since 2012. Originally trained as an interior architect, Eva studied for her PhD at the Bartlett. Her research and teaching work has two main strands: the first engages with the links between built heritage and cultural practices in contemporary Western cities, whether expressed through cultural institutions or counter-cultural and street art; the second is in the 19th- and 20th-century architectural history of Central Europe, focussing particularly upon Austria and other regions in the former Austro-Hungarian Empire. 
 

Eva’s work concentrates particularly on the intersections of architecture and media, such as exhibitions, publications, and photography, as well as museum architecture as a cultural and urban hinge. These topics intersect with her extensive experience in British architectural heritage having spent a decade as a caseworker for the Twentieth Century Society. 
 

Eva has published extensively – including Hans Hollein and Postmodernism (Routledge, 2019), the first major monograph on that architect-artist. She has co-curated exhibitions at the MAK Gallery in Vienna, ICA in London and Museum Abteiberg in Germany, and has previously taught architectural history at Queen Mary University, Oxford Brookes University and the University of Westminster.