Research
Rationalism and Neo-Rationalism. Type.
I have instigated two projects on Rationalism in Western European Architecture. Rationalist Traces, co-edited with Andrew Peckham (Westminster) and Charles Rattray (Dundee), Wiley, 2007, is a survey of the legacy of rationalist architecture in six European countries, and includes contributions from international scholars such as Durth (Darmstadt), Moravanszky (ETH Zürich) and Abram (Nancy). Following Rationalist Traces, I developed the idea for The Rationalist Reader - Architecture and Rationalism in Western Europe 1920-1940 and 1960-1990, (subsequently co-edited with Andrew Peckham), Routledge, September 2013. The Reader is the first anthology on Rationalism / Neo-Rationalism and contains texts by well-known architects and theorists of both periods (for example Wagner, Oud, Loos, Behne, Le Corbusier, Mies, Rossi, Grassi, Gregotti, Krier, Ungers, Kollhoff), as well as writings by contemporary researchers (Aureli, Schnell, Doordan, Etlin, Rifkind and Lobsinger, and others). Work on the book included the translation of a substantial number of writings into English. Invited contributions by Alan Colquhoun, Charles Rattray, Thilo Hilpert (Wiesbaden), Nicholas Bullock (Cambridge) and Henk Engel (Delft), provide introductions to the respective periods.
Conspicuousness in Contemporary Architecture / The Representation of Architecture in Print Media
In July 2016 I was awarded an RIBA Research Trust Award to investigate post war architecture in children’s picture books: The representation of Modern Architecture through illustrations in postwar British Children’s Literature.
In 2014 I developed the idea for a volume on the reception and assimilation of Modernism in European architecture journals: Modernism and the Professional Architecture Journal - Reporting, editing and reconstructing in post-war Europe. The book, co-edited with Andrew Peckham, was published by Routledge in July 2018. Contributors include Tournikiotis, Bullock, Higgott, Scrivano, van Bergeijk, Allenspach, Caldenby, Ferkai and Esteban Maluenda.
Pursuing my interest in the representation of architecture / architects in the media I have co-edited two volumes investigating the relationship between architecture and publicity: Fame and Architecture, with Julia Chance (Liverpool), Wiley, 2001; An Architects Guide to Fame, with Paul Davies (South Bank), Architectural Press, 2005.
In July 2016 I was awarded a Research Trust Award (RIBA) for a project investigating postwar architecture in children’s picture books: The representation of Modern Architecture through illustrations in postwar British Children’s Literature. This research resulted in an exhibition I curated at RIBA North in Liverpool (April / May 2019); a co-authored paper, with Dr Emma Hayward, 'Absent Architectures' (Journal of Architecture 24.4); and the edited volume Building Children's Worlds - The Representation of Architecture and Modernity in Picturebooks (with Jill Rudd and Emma Hayward, Routledge March 2023. https://www.routledge.com/Building-Childrens-Worlds-The-Representation-of-Architecture-and-Modernity/Schmiedeknecht-Rudd-Hayward/p/book/9780367675486).
Architectural Competitions
Based on personal experience working on competitions in Germany, I developed an interest in the German competition system and the dissemination of its results in the journal Wettbewerbe Aktuell. Initially funded by an AHRC grant this resulted in various papers (ARQ; NJAR), in a chapter in an anthology on competitions (Roenn et al), and a chapter on the procurement of the Everyman Theatre and the Liverpool Philharmonic Hall, 'Architecture as Process', to a volume edited by Strebel and Silberberger: Architecture Competition (Routledge 2017).
Research grants
30 Years of Wettbewerbe Aktuell - causes and effects on public architecture in Germany.
ARTS AND HUMANITIES RESEARCH COUNCIL
July 2003 - July 2004
Research collaborations
Charles Rattray
The University of Dundee
Joint Guest Editor of the issue "Rationalist Traces" for Architectural Design.
Andrew Peckham
The University of Westminster
Joint Guest Editor of the issue "Rationalist Traces" for Architectural Design.