Public Online Lecture by Professor Andreas Lechner “Typologies of Transformation“

We are pleased to inform you that the Laboratory for Architecture and Urban Studies at Ilia State University is currently implementing a project entitled “Urban Transformations of Saburtalo.” The project investigates, on the one hand, the processes of urban transformation in Saburtalo from the late nineteenth century through the 1990s, and, on the other hand, the architectural characteristics and particularities of housing construction.

A key focus of the research team is the examination of how residential building types have evolved in parallel with the spatial transformation of the neighborhood, how different typologies have been established, and how these have undergone change over time.

Within the framework of the project, four international seminars are planned, bringing together scholars engaged with this field of research. The first seminar will take place on 30 October of this year and will be led by Professor Andreas Lechner of the Faculty of Architecture at Graz University of Technology (TU Graz). The theme of the seminar will be Typologies of Transformation.

In contemporary architectural discourse, the imperative to Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle—encompassing adaptive reuse, continual transformation, and building upon the built—fundamentally challenges inherited notions of architectural production and authorial invention. In this lecture, Andreas Lechner examines the evolving relationship between architectural type, typology, and strategies of transformation, drawing on his recent publication Architectural Affordances – Typologies of Umbau (2025). Here, the concept of Umbau (German for “transformation”) reframes architectural reasoning and practice—extending beyond maintenance, technical renovation, or adaptive reuse. It proposes a more nuanced dialogue with typology, historical continuity, and material articulation, that started with his 2021 „Thinking Design – Blueprint for an Architecture of Typology“ (Park Books: Zurich 2021).

Structured around theoretical inquiry, typological analysis, and drawing-based research, the talk invites to discern the latent spatial potentials—architectural affordances—embedded in existing structures.These affordances, understood as both ecological and cultural prompts, offer new ways of engaging with the resilience, adaptability, and social intelligence of the built environment, ultimately repositioning „Umbau” not as a niche activity but as architecture’s disciplinary core—at once critical praxis and artistic endeavour.

Andreas Lechner is an architect, educator, and writer whose practice is rooted in contextually sensitive, research-driven design. He holds a PhD and a Master of Architecture from TU Graz, where he currently serves as Associate Professor at the Faculty of Architecture. Before founding Studio Andreas Lechner, he studied and worked with Pritzker Architecture Prize–winning architects, drawing on formative experiences in Los Angeles, Berlin, Vienna, and Tokyo. He is the author of the award-winning, based on his habilitation, and has held postdoctoral research positions at Università Iuav di Venezia and Royal Danish Academy in Copenhagen. Lechner lectures and teaches internationally, serves as a visiting professor at Politecnico di Milano, and leads the research group “Counterintuitive Typologies” supported by the Austrian Research Promotion Agency. He is also co-editor of GAM – Graz Architecture Magazine and of a forthcoming special issue of The Journal of Architecture.