Esra Akcan

Esra Akcan is a Turkish-American architect, academic and author. Currently, she is the Michael A. McCarthy Professor in the Department of Architecture and the resident director of Institute for Comparative Modernities at Cornell University.

Akcan’s research on modern and contemporary architecture and urbanism focuses on the intertwined histories of Europe and West Asia, and on understanding architecture’s role in global, social and environmental justice. Akcan has also authored over 150 research articles on critical and postcolonial theory, racism, immigration, architectural photography, translation, neoliberalism, and global history.

Akcan has received numerous awards and fellowships including Carter Manny Award from Graham Foundation and the Berlin Prize from American Academy in Berlin.

Education She completed her Bachelor's and Master’s degree in architecture from the Middle East Technical University in Turkey. She then moved to USA and earned her M.Phil., Ph.D. and postdoctoral degrees from Columbia Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation in New York. Her teaching emphasized postcolonial theory, migration, and the politics of design, continuing the themes that underpin her scholarly work. Earlier in her career, Akcan held a postdoctoral lectureship at Columbia University’s Core Curriculum program, teaching the required Contemporary Civilization seminars.

She also taught as an adjunct and preceptor at Columbia’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP), as well as at the Parsons School of Design and Pratt Institute in New York.

Akcan began her teaching career as a teaching assistant at the Middle East Technical University (METU) in Ankara, where she earned her architecture degree. She later received her Ph.D. and postdoctoral training at Columbia University.

Akcan’s scholarly contributions have been recognized with numerous fellowships and awards. These include grants from Cornell’s Einaudi Center for International Studies, Mui Ho Center for Cities, and the Cornell Migration Initiative; a Frieda Miller Fellowship at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University (2019–20).

She received publication and research grants from the Graham Foundation and the Canadian Centre for Architecture; and the Berlin Prize from the American Academy in Berlin (2016–17).

She has held fellowships at the Getty Research Institute, the Clark Art Institute, the Institute for Advanced Study in Berlin, and Rechtskulturen at Humboldt University.

Her earlier work, Landfill Istanbul: Twelve Scenarios for a Global City (2004), presented visions for Istanbul’s urban development. She also co-authored Turkey: Modern Architectures in History (2012) with Sibel Bozdoğan, and collaborated with Bernd Nicolai on Building in Exile: Bruno Taut in Turkey (2019).

Akcan published ‘’Open Architecture: Migration, Citizenship and the Urban Renewal of Berlin-Kreuzberg by IBA-1984/87’’ in 2018. This book defines open architecture as the translation of a new ethics of hospitality into design process and focuses on formal, programmatic and procedural steps towards open architecture during the urban renewal of Berlin’s immigrant neighborhood. In a positive review of the book, Clemens Filkenstein wrote that “Open Architecture, with its innovative methodology and style, becomes a manifesto to propagate not only spaces of hospitality but the writing of ‘open architectural history.’”

In her work, Akcan frequently critiques dominant models of architectural cosmopolitanism rooted in Enlightenment universalism, which she argues can mask structures of racial, class-based, and cultural exclusion. Drawing from postcolonial theory, she calls for a new ethics of hospitality and “cosmopolitanism from below” that centers the lived experiences of immigrants and noncitizen residents. She sees architecture not merely as a form or object but as a medium of political expression and ethical action.

Akcan also integrates her academic research with curatorial and artistic practice. She has produced multimedia installations and performances to accompany her research, including Adding a Layer Under the Mercator Grid, exhibited at the 2012 Istanbul Design Biennial, and Freedom of Information, a photographic and sculptural work that became the cover image of Open Architecture.

Her book Building in Exile: Bruno Taut (co-authored with Bernd Nicolai) revisits Taut’s work in Turkey as a framework for thinking about exile, sustainability, and global architectural ethics.

Akcan has also authored more than 150 scholarly articles and essays in multiple languages, exploring topics such as immigration, racism, neoliberalism, architectural photography, postcolonial critique, translation theory, and global architectural history. and wrote a new book titled Right-to-Heal: Architecture in Transitions After Conflicts and Disasters, which addresses architecture’s role in post-crisis recovery and transitional justice.

Views and opinions A prominent voice in contemporary architectural theory, Akcan’s work contributes to broader conversations about the role of architecture in conditions of displacement, inequality, and transformation. 2010 - Arnheim-Professor at Institut für Kunst- und Bildgeschichte, Humboldt University, Berlin. 2011 - Fellow, Clark Art Institute 2011 - Millard Meiss Publication Grant for Architecture in Translation through Duke University Press, College Art Association 2012 - Fellow, Rechtskulturen at the Forum Transregionale Studien 2016 - 2017 - Berlin Prize, American Academy in Berlin 2017 - Graham Foundation Publication Grant for Open Architecture 2019 - Research Fellow, Canadian Center for Architecture 2019 - 2020 - Frieda Miller Fellow, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University