Faraz Olfat

Faraz Olfat is a PhD student in the History of Art specializing in the history of architecture, design, and material culture. His scholarship is centered around architectural developments in Europe, in light of rising nationalism and fast changing socio-cultural conditions in the second half of the nineteenth century. Having completed his MA at the Courtauld Institute of Art in 2019, with a focus on German Modernism, he is interested in a broader configuration of the Modern Movement and its relationship to the architectural aesthetics of earlier periods.

Trained in the discipline of architecture, Faraz considers the academization and categorization of historical architectural conventions and their reinvention through mixings in the pursuit of a modern style. Under the premise of eclecticism, he studies the stylistic shifts and the development of complex architectural languages that carry multiple messages and merge vastly different historical and geographical precedents into one coherent entity. He is particularly interested in the conceptual development of eclecticism in Pan-European architecture in response to rising nationalism, and expansionist colonial imperialism in a period that demanded a future-oriented architecture for a new epoch. He addresses such efforts in formulating a national style in the age of modernity for new nation-states in the nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries.