Maarten Liefooghe

Prof. Maarten Liefooghe (°1983) is Associate Professor in Architectural History, Theory and Criticism. His research revolves around encounters between discourses and practices of art, architecture, exhibition and preservation. Together with prof. Maarten Van Den Driessche he directs the Architecture Culture and the Contemporary (ACC) research unit. Besides academic and policy oriented publications, Liefooghe also occasionally publishes critical reviews on art or architecture. He is a member of the editorial board of OASE Journal for Architecture, and one of the external experts advising the Flemish Government Architect (2021-2025).

Liefooghe graduated in architecture and engineering in 2006 after studying at Ghent University and TU Berlin. As a FWO doctoral fellow he did doctoral research into ‘The Monographic Factor’, about single-artist museums, their entanglement with life-and-work discourses, and their institutional and architectural hybridity. Current research is concerned with heritage discourses and problems in and beyond architecture (19th- 21st C.), and with contemporary architecture culture – public buildings and public space, architecture exhibitions – their formats, roles in architecture criticism – competition culture and public commissioning, notions of ‘architecture quality’.

From 2013 to 2017 Maarten Liefooghe taught architectural history and historic preservation at VUB, Brussels. In spring 2016 he was a visiting scholar in Heritage Studies at UCL, in 2017 he was an ATCH research fellow at the University of Queensland.

He has published in a.o. Journal of Architecture, Architectural Histories, Architecture Theory Review. Recent publications include the essay ‘Model at a Crossroads’ in ‘More Than a Competition. The Open Call in a Broadened Field of Government Architects and Architectural Practices’ (Liefooghe and Van Den Driessche, VAi/TVB, 2021) and ‘UV-Radiated Artificial Beach’ in ‘Extinct, A Compendium of Obsolete Objects’ (Penner et al., Reaktion Books, 2021). With Maarten Delbeke he is editing ‘Touring Belgium’, a volume about 19th.-Century travel publications and heritage, modernity, and identity.