Maki Iisaka 

Wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin (research associate)

Institut für Kunstgeschichte, Universität Münster

Current Project

DFG Project ("Eigene Stelle"): Architectural Promenades in the Work of Tōgo Murano: a Twentieth-Century Practice between Pragmatism, Mathematics, and Kazari, 2024–2027

Books and Articles

"Seiichi Shirai: Text | Inversion" (with photography by D. Kerr)

"Roofs and Grids in Postwar Japanese Architecture: Excision, Sublation, and Layering of the Symbolic" (Architectural Histories, Volume 12, Issue 1, 2024; the article treats works of Kenzo Tange, Seiichi Shirai, and Togo Murano)

"Indexing Absence: From Material Dimensions to Projective Realities in the work of Jirō Takamatsu" (submitted) 

Dissertation

"Text and Inversion in the Architecture of Seiichi Shirai" 

Paper Presentations

"Murano Tōgo and the pragmatism of Tanaka Ōdō and William James", the 17th International Conference of the European Association for Japanese Studies, Ghent, August 2023

"Mathematics and the Architecture of Tōgo Murano", Southeast Chapter of the Society of Architectural Historians, Virtual conference, October 2020

"Indexing Absence: From Material Dimensions to Projective Realities", The Rachofsky Collection 2019 Graduate Symposium, The Warehouse, Dallas, November 2019

"Between emblem and ornament: text in the book design, calligraphy, and architecture of Shirai Seiichi", PoNJA-GenKon Conference Writing and Picturing in Post-1945 Asian Art, University of Chicago, April 2017

"Amateurism in the work of Shirai Seiichi: from architecture to calligraphy", AAS-in-Asia Conference, Doshisha University, Kyoto, June 2016

"Henri Poincaré and William James in the sensible space of Togo Murano", Philosophy & Architecture: International Postgraduate Conference, Lisbon, November 2015

"Radical inversions in the architecture of Seiichi Shirai", MCAA conference, Washington University, St. Louis, October 2015

"Roofs and grids in postwar Japan: Kenzo Tange, Seiichi Shirai, and Togo Murano", Graduate Colloquium Series, Texas A&M University, December 2014

"Roofs and grids in postwar Japan: Tange Kenzo, Shirai Seiichi, and Murano Togo", PoNJA-Genkon 10th Anniversary Symposium–For a New Wave to Come: Post-1945 Japanese Art History Now, Japan Society and NYU, New York City, September 2014

Other Writings

Reconfiguring Natures: Modern Architecture and the Picturesque  [guide] Stark Galleries, Texas A&M University, November 8–23, 2016

Work Experience

• Wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin (Research Associate), Institut für Kunstgeschichte, Universität Münster (2021 – )

– DFG Project ("Eigene Stelle"): Architectural Promenades in the Work of Tōgo Murano: a Twentieth-Century Practice between Pragmatism, Mathematics, and Kazari, 2024–2027    

– Hauptseminar (mit Prof. Dr. Eva Krems) Dialoge in der Architektur: Japan und der Westen (19.-20. Jh.), Winter 2023/2024

– Hauptseminar (mit Prof. Dr. Eva Krems) Japonismus: Japan und Europa im späten 19. und frühen 20. Jahrhundert (Kunst und Architektur), Sommer 2022

• Lecturer, Texas A&M University (2019 – 2020) 

     – ARCH 645 Seminar in Architectural Theory 

     – ARCH 260 Comparative Theory in the Built and Virtual Environments

• Instructor of Record, Texas A&M University (2017, 2019)

     – ARCH 260 Comparative Theory in the Built and Virtual Environments

• Teaching Assistant,Texas A&M University (2012 – 2017)

     – ARCH 249 Survey of World Architecture History I

     – ARCH 305 Architectural Design III 

     – ARCH 350 History and Theory of Modern and Contemporary Architecture 

Education

Ph.D. in Architecture, Texas A&M University, 2012 – 2019

"Text and Inversion in the Architecture of Seiichi Shirai"

M.Sc., Mathematics, University of Toronto, 1992

B.Sc. Honours, Mathematics, University of Ottawa, 1991