Karen Burns

Position:

Lecturer, Department of Architecture

Qualifications:

• PhD, Art History The University of Melbourne
  
• Master in Eighteenth Century Studies Monash University
• Bachelor of Arts, Visual Arts (Hons) Monash University

Personal Statement:

Dr Karen Burns is an architectural historian, architectural theorist and architectural critic. Her current research interests include: the development of design discourse, partnerships and knowledge transfer between architects and manufacturers in 1840s and 1850s Britain, frontier domesticity in Port Philip and Van Diemen’s Land, 1828-1845, contemporary feminist theory, women in architectural workplaces and a history of post-68 feminism in architecture.

She is currently a serving editorial board member of Interstices, Fabrications and Ultima Thule. In 2009 she won the “Best Paper Prize” at the 26th International Conference of the Society of Architectural Historians of Australia and New Zealand for her paper “The Grammar of Ornament: A Pacific Tale” and her paper  “Frontier conflict, contact, exchange: re-imagining colonial architecture”, at SAHANZ 2010 was short-listed for best paper prize. Together with seven colleagues from a number of Australian universities she was awarded a 2010 ARC Linkage Grant to investigate “Equity and Diversity in the Australian Architecture Profession: Women, Work and Leadership”.

Selected  Publications:

   Book Chapters:

• “Digital Organic: Imagining an Evolutionary Future for Architecture”, Designing Design, IAPL (International Association for Philosophy and Literature) Textures Series, Maryland: Lexington Press, 2009/2010
  
  
• Entries, Encyclopaedia of Australian Architecture, ed. Philip Goad and Julie Willis, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011
  
  
• “A House for Josephine Baker,” in Intimus: Interior Design theory Reader, ed. Mark Taylor and Julienna Preston (Chicester England: Wiley Academy: 2006)
  
  
• "Surface Architecture", in Surface Consciousness AD, (ed) Mark Taylor (London: John Wiley, 2003)
  
  
• "A House For Josephine Baker", in Postcolonial Space(s),  (ed.) Gülsüm Nalbantoglu and Bobby Wong Chong Thai (New York : Princeton University Press, 1997)
  
  
• "Architecture/Discipline/Bondage" in Desiring Practices : Architecture, Gender and the Interdisciplinary, (ed.) Duncan McCorquodale, Katerina  Rüedi and Sarah Wigglesworth (London :  Black Dog Publishing, 1996)
  

   Journal Articles:

• “Lunar Vision”, Volume 25: Getting There Being There, Archis/Volume,Amsterdam, October 2010: 62-63.

• “Ex Libris: archaeologies of feminism, architecture and deconstruction”, Architectural Theory Review, 15/3 December 2010: 242-265 

• "The Afterlife of an Architectural Event", Assemblage, 41, Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, March 2001

• "Topographies of Tourism : 'Documentary' photography and The Stones of Venice", Assemblage 32, Cambridge, Massachusetts : The MIT Press, July 1997

   Refereed Conference Publications:

• “The Grammar of Ornament: A Pacific Tale”, Cultural Crossroads, Society of Architectural historians of Australia and New Zealand, Auckland University, July 2-5, 2009
  
  
• Co-authored with Selby Coxon and Arthur de Bono, “Shaping the Maze”, 32nd Australasian Transport Research Forum, Auckland, New Zealand, 29 September – 1 October,  2009
  
  
• Co-authored with Selby Coxon and Arthur de Bono, “Can the design of effective public space inform the passenger experience of public transport?”, 31st Australasian Transport Research Forum, Gold Coast, Queensland, September 30-October 2, 2008
  
  
• “The Other Crystal Place”, Society of Architectural Historians of Australia and New Zealand, Deakin University, July 3-6, 2008
  
  
• Co-authored with Peter Raisbeck and Susan Wilkes, “How much scaffolding do they need to build?”, Connected 2007 – International Conference on Design Education, University of New South Wales, July 9-12, 2007
  
  
• “Greg Lynn’s Embryological House Project and the Technology of Architecture”, Association of Architectural Schools of Australasia, University of Technology, Sydney, September 27 – 29, 2007
  
  
• “The Politics and Aesthetic of Reproducibility: The 1850’s Design ‘Reform’ Debate”, Society of Architectural Historians Australia and New Zealand, University of South Australia, September 21-24, 2007
  
  
• “Uncertain Sights: Owen Jones’ Improvements for the Crystal Palace Interior”, Society of Architectural Historians Australia and New Zealand, Fremantle, Western Australia, September 29-October 2, 2006
  
  
• “The Optical Surface of Architecture”, Society of Architectural Historians Australia and New Zealand, RMIT University, September 26-30, 2004.
  
  
• “Architecture: that Dangerous, Useless Supplement”, Accessory Architecture, University of Auckland, July 7-9, 1995.

Selected Papers and Guest Lectures:

• “Atmospheric  Vision: Weather, Photography and The Stones of Venice”, Ruskin, Venice and 19th Century Cultural Travel, Venice International University 25-27 September 2008, The Ruskin Center at Lancaster University, Interdisciplinary Nineteenth-Century Studies, Department of European and Postcolonial Studies at the University of Ca’ Foscari
  
  
• Invited Symposium convened by Professor Mark Burry, “The Place of Narrative in the Contemporary Built Environment”, Local Knowledge/Global Arts, The International Association for Philosophy and literature, RMIT University/University of Melbourne and La Trobe University, June 30 – July 4, 2008
  
  
• “Questions of Representation”, Digital Design Symposium, School of Architecture, University of Sydney, September 2003   
  
  
• “Face-Up Forum”, Hamburger Banhof, Berlin, October 2003
  
  
• “The Optical Surface of Architecture", Invited Guest Lecture, Visiting Lecture Program, Department of Architecture, Iowa State University, January 26 1998
  
  
• "Spectral Details, Historical Ghosts : Gothic Tourism", American Conference on Romanticism, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, January 22-25, 1998
  
  
• "(Sight) seeing the past : History and Identity", Constructing Identity : Between Architecture and Culture", Cornell University, October 24-24 1997
  
  
• "Architecture/Discipline/Bondage", Desiring Practices, Royal Institute of British Architects.  London, October 18- 19, 1995
  
  
• "Architecture: that Dangerous, Useless Supplement", Accessory Architecture, University of Auckland, July 6, 1995
  
  
• “Rough Trade: Desire and The Stones of Venice", Hypotheses, School of Architecture, Princeton University, April 23, 1994
  
  
• "Ornament, Adolf Loos and The Non-Western Body", Architecture (Post)Modernity and Difference, University of Singapore, Singapore, April 17 1993