Gerhard Vinken (born 15 April 1961 in Hanover) is a German art historian and heritage conservationist.
Career
Gerhard Vinken studied Art History, Philosophy, and History in Freiburg, Paris and Berlin and was awarded his doctorate in 1995 by Heinrich Thelen at the Free University of Berlin with a thesis on Romanesque sacral architecture in the Auvergne (Baustruktur und Heiligenkult. Romanische Sakralarchitektur in der Auvergne). He took his post-doctoral Habilitation degree in art history at the Faculty of Philosophy and History at the University of Bern (Switzerland) in 2008 with a work on the "making" of the old town (Zone Heimat. Altstadt im modernen Städtebau, Munich/Berlin 2010).
Beyond academia, he served as division head (Gebietsreferent) of the Brandenburg State Architectural Conservation Authority (BLDAM) from 1992 to 1994, participated in various art history and heritage conservation research projects and worked as an author and journalist. He was the principal author of the seminal research encyclopedia of historical monuments throughout the state of BrandenburgDehio-Handbuch der Deutschen Kunstdenkmäler: Brandenburg, München/Berlin 2000 (principal author). and taught at institutions including BTU Cottbus, the University of Greifswald, the Free University of Berlin, the Humboldt University of Berlin and in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.Usbekisch-Deutscher Masterstudiengang für Bauerhaltung und Denkmalpflege. Retrieved June 14, 2024.
From 2003 to 2006 he was Acting Professor of Art History and Architectural Theory at RWTH Aachen University, then from 2009 to 2012 Professor of Interdisciplinary Urban Studies in the Department of Architecture at the Technical University of Darmstadt. This endowed professorship was assigned to the research group working on "The Intrinsic Logic of Cities" (Eigenlogik der Städte), a project funded by the Hessian Ministry of Higher Education, Research and the Arts as part of the Hessian State Offensive for the Development of Scientific and Economic Excellence (LOEWE) and was responsible for most teaching activities of the Graduate School for Urban Studies (URBANgrad).LOEWE – Landes-Offensive zur Entwicklung Wissenschaftlich-ökonomischer Exzellenz. Jahresbericht 2009, Wiesbaden 2010, pp. 43ff. (wissenschaft.hessen.de).
Since 2012, Professor Vinken has held the Chair in Heritage Conservation at the University of Bamberg. He is a founding member of the Centre for Heritage Studies and Technologies (KDWT), which was established in 2016, and continues to sit on its executive.Website of the KDWT Bamberg: Prof. Dr. Gerhard Vinken. Retrieved June 14, 2024.
Twice, in 2004 and 2006, he was a Fellow at the International Research Center for Cultural Studies in Vienna ("Changing Metropolises"). In 2014/15, he was a visiting scholar at New York University (NYU) and in 2023, he was a Fellow at the Institute for Urban Humanities (IUH) at the University of Seoul (Republic of Korea).Website of the KDWT Bamberg: Prof. Dr. Gerhard Vinken. Retrieved June 14, 2024. He was awarded a prestigious Volkswagen Foundation Opus Magnum grant for his foundational study "Kulturerbe als Aufgabe" (2025).Opus Magnum: VolkswagenStiftung fördert zwölf „große Werke". Retrieved June 14, 2024.
Research After writing his doctoral dissertation on Medieval architecture, Vinken shifted his focus to historical urban research. He was motivated to do this by an interest in practical heritage conservation and a research project funded by the Gerda Henkel Foundation (Historic Cities in Modern Urban Planning, 2003–7).The fruits of this multi-year project: Gerhard Vinken: Zones of Tradition. Influenced by the "spatial turn", he applied spatial theory to this field, an approach that he developed as a research fellow at the International Research Center for Cultural Studies (IFK) in ViennaWebsite of the IFK Linz in Vienna: Ort und Bahn. Altstadt im modernen Städtebau. Retrieved May 29, 2024. and within the DFG research network: "Spaces in the City: Perspectives on Spatial Research in Art History" (2004–2007)Gerhard Vinken: Ort und Bahn. Die Räume der modernen Stadt bei Le Corbusier und Rudolf Schwarz, in: Cornelia Jöchner (ed.): Räume der Stadt. Von der Antike bis heute, Berlin 2008, pp.147–164. – including its application to heritage conservation research.Gerhard Vinken: Die Räume des Denkmals. ›Bildmacht‹ als Ergebnis räumlicher Praktiken, in: Henner von Hesberg, Jürgen Kunow, Thomas Otten (eds.), Die Bildmacht des Denkmals - Ikonisierung und Erleben archäologischer Denkmäler im Stadtbild (= Archäologisches Gedächtnis der Städte, Schriftenreihe des Arbeitskreises Bodendenkmäler der Fritz Thyssen Stiftung, Band 5), Regensburg 2021, pp. 145–157. During his tenure as Professor of Interdisciplinary Urban Studies at the Technical University of Darmstadt and while pursuing the LOEWE project on "The Internal Logic of Cities", he worked on the logics of reproduction of cultural and urban heritage.Gerhard Vinken: Reproducing the City? Heritage and Eigenlogik, in: Urban Research & Practice, 5 (3) 2012, pp. 325–334; Gerhard Vinken: Lokale Sinnstiftung. Städtische Eigenlogik und die Bedeutung der Denkmale, in: Martina Löw/Georgios Terizakis (eds.): Städte und ihre Eigenlogik. Ein Handbuch für Stadtplanung und Stadtentwicklung, Frankfurt/New York, 2011, pp. 73–82.
His general field of research is the construction of traditions and historical structures in architecture and urban planning. Alongside major works on the genesis of the historic city,Gerhard Vinken: Zone Heimat. Vinken has published on topics including post-war reconstruction,Gerhard Vinken: Wiederaufbau als „Kampf um die Mitte“. Stadtplanung zwischen technischer Erneuerung und Kontinuitätsversprechen, in: Birgit Franz (ed.): Stadtplanung nach 1945 – Zerstörung und Wiederaufbau, Veröffentlichung des Arbeitskreises Theorie und Lehre der Denkmalpflege e.V., Band 20, Holzminden 2011, pp. 14–21. reconstructive architecturesGerhard Vinken: Unstillbarer Hunger nach Echtem. Frankfurts neue Altstadt zwischen Rekonstruktion und Themenarchitektur, in: Forum Stadt. Zeitschrift für Stadtgeschichte, Stadtsoziologie, Denkmalpflege und Stadtentwicklung, 40(2) 2013, pp. 119–136. and urban conservation,Website of the KDWT: Old Town: The Making of Historic Cityscapes in International Contexts, retrieved June 14, 2024; Gerhard, Vinken: Vorbild Amerika? ›Historic Districts‹ und städtebauliche Denkmalpflege in den USA, in: Forum Stadt, 44. Jg., 3/2017, pp. 251–270. contributing to questions around image production,Project supported by the German Research Foundation (together with Prof. Dr. Stephan Albrecht): "Historic Preservation and the Image of the Middle Ages. Conceptual Paradigms and Image Production in the Context of Medieval Ecclesiastical Architecture in Germany and France" (approved December 2014): https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/269856417?language=en;%20https://www.uni-bamberg.de/en/denkmalpflege/forschung/projekte/abgeschlossene-projekte/images-of-the-middle-ages/. Accessed June 14, 2024. homogenization, and myths of cleansing and purification.Gerhard Vinken: Stadt – Denkmal – Bild. Wider die homogenen Bilder der Heimat, in: Hans-Rudolf Meier (ed.): Stadtbild und Denkmalpflege. Konstruktion und Rezeption von Bildern der Stadt, Berlin 2008, pp. 162–175.
In recent years, Vinken's interests have centered on the anthropological turn in heritage studies and on critical heritage studies.Homepage of the Association of Critical Heritage Studies. Retrieved June 14, 2024 Topics such as heritage and emotion,Gerhard Vinken/Stephanie Herold (eds): Denkmal_Emotion. Politisierung – Mobilisierung – Bindung, Holzminden 2021 (books.ub.uni-heidelberg.de). participation,Gerhard Vinken: Escaping Modernity? Civic Protest, the Preservation Movement and the Reinvention of the Old Town in Germany since the 1960s, in: Martin Baumeister/Bruno Bonomo/Dieter Schott (eds.): Cities Contested. Urban Politics, Heritage, and Social Movements in Italy and West Germany in the 1970s, Frankfurt am Main/New York 2017, pp. 169–191. cultural self-determination and processes of suppression and marginalizationGerhard Vinken: Die „Entdeckung" Siziliens und die Verdrängung des Mittelalters aus dem Kanon des gebauten Erbes, in: Katharina Christa Schüppel/Magdalena Tebel (eds.): Kunstgeschichte(n). Festschrift für Stephan Albrecht, Bamberg 2024, pp. 144–151. https://doi.org/10.20378/irb-90878. were taken up in historical and theoretical reflections on the political agenda of cultural heritage.Gerhard Vinken: Kulturerbe als Aufgabe. Kanonisierung, Politisierung, Heterogenisierung (supported by the Opus Magnum program of the Volkswagen Foundation).
Selected publications
Books
Baustruktur und Heiligenkult. Romanische Sakralarchitektur in der Auvergne, Wernersche Verlagsgesellschaft, Worms 1997 (Dissertation), . Zone Heimat. Altstadt im modernen Städtebau, Deutscher Kunstverlag, München/Berlin 2010 (Habilitation), . Zones of Traditions, Places of Identity. Cities and their Heritage, transcript, Bielefeld 2021, .
Edited volumes
Denkmal – Werte – Bewertung. Denkmalpflege im Spannungsfeld von Fachinstitution und bürgerschaftlichem Engagement (with Birgit Franz), Mitzkat, Holzminden 2014, . Das Erbe der Anderen. Denkmalpflegerisches Handeln im Zeichen der Globalisierung / The Heritage of the Other. Conservation Considerations in an Age of Globalization, Universitätsverlag, Bamberg 2015, . Produkt Altstadt. Historische Stadtzentren in Städtebau und Denkmalpflege (with Carmen M. Enss), transcript, Bielefeld 2016, . Das Digitale und die Denkmalpflege. Bestandserfassung - Denkmalvermittlung - Datenarchivierung - Rekonstruktion verlorener Objekte (with Birgit Franz), Holzminden 2017, . Denkmal_Emotion. Politisierung – Mobilisierung – Bindung (with Stephanie Herold), Mitzkat, Holzminden 2021,
External links Literature by and about Gerhard Vinken in the catalogue of the German National Library Vinken's personal page on the website of the Chair of Heritage Conservation at the University of Bamberg The Heritage Conservation division on the website of the Centre for HeritageConservation Studies and Technologies (KDWT) at the University of Bamberg Author page at the transcript publishing house
References