Teresa Fankhänel

These are the results of one of a series of Games for Curators I’ve been playing with a group of colleagues at @urania.hr , organized by @studiofabula and @anamorilic . The prompt was: 1. Draw a floor plan of a gallery you know or imagine. It has to have one entrance and one exit. 2. Hand it to the person next to you. Find 10 different ways to increase the wall space in the gallery. 3. Hand it to the person next to you. Indicate the way a visitor would move through the altered galleries.

20 architecture games for (at least) one human and one AI now on view @architekturmuseum_tum in the exhibition “City in the Cloud. Data on the Ground.” The games were developed with my Master’s students at KIT and Max Hallinan and are inspired by Charles Jencks and Lev Bratishenko. They are meant to reflect on the value of images, words and collections in architecture. To us playing these games has been a kind of thinking out loud about the new, awkward, astonishing role of language brought back into architecture through AI. #ai #aiarchitecture #architecturegames #wordsandbuildings

NEU IM TEAM DES DEUTSCHEN ARCHITEKTURMUSEUMS: Teresa Fankhänel ist seit November 2025 Kuratorin am Deutschen Architekturmuseum, wo sie sich unter anderem mit Fragen des (Weiter)Sammelns im digitalen Zeitalter und mit Architektur als einem gesellschaftlichen Phänomen beschäftigt. Bevor sie ans DAM kam, arbeitete sie am Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum der Michigan State University und am Architekturmuseum der TUM. Zu ihren Ausstellungen zählen „The Architecture Machine“ (2020–21), „Shouldn’t You Be Working?“ (2023), „Andrea Canepa: As We Dwell in the Fold“ (2023–24) und „Farmland“ (2025). Im vergangenen akademischen Jahr war sie Vertretungsprofessorin für Architekturtheorie am Karlsruher Institut für Technologie. Neben ihrer Tätigkeit als Kuratorin ist sie seit 2022 Chefredakteurin der „Architectural Exhibition Review“ @architecturalexhibitionreview . Willkommen im DAM! Foto: @kirstenbucher.photographer #neuimteam #architekturmuseum #hinterdenkulissen #kuratorin @teresafank

So many conflicts are occurring: “In a manner of speaking: from bits to bricks,” a years-long conversation with Max Hallinan about language, computation, intelligence, and what we really mean when we say words. Thanks to @architekturmuseum_tum @anlepik @damjan_kokalevski @architangle for including us in this volume. May this be but the beginning of our conversations about data. #data #computation #intelligence #love

Last semester I did a lecture series for master’s students thinking about currently relevant terms and concepts that we keep hearing about in architecture. We talked about such mind-bogglingly complex topics as intelligence, reality, language and planetarity. But we also looked at seemingly prosaic concerns like bureaucracy or labor. I polled everyone at the end to see which terms we missed. We have a winner: Time! Silver goes to Practice vs. Theory. Bronze is a tie between Beauty and Repair & Renovation. What I forgot to include is a field to add further topics. Is there anything still missing?

Last day of Farmland: Food, Justice, and Sovereignty. Farmland: Food, Justice, and Sovereignty is centered around questions of food knowledge, production, scarcity, and consumption against the background of Michigan State University’s 170-year history of agricultural tradition. Farmland: Food, Justice, and Sovereignty is organized by the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University and co-curated by Teresa Fankhänel, former associate curator, and Dalina A. Perdomo Álvarez, assistant curator, with support from Madison Kennedy-Kequom, curatorial intern, and contributions by the Justice League of Greater Lansing Michigan. Lead funding for this exhibition is provided by the Eli and Edythe Broad Endowed Exhibitions Fund. Artists: Ambiguous Standards Institute, Mathias Joseph Alten, William Camargo, Sue Coe, Cooking Sections, John S. Coppin, Francisco de Goya, Grupo Compacto Humano, Huamani de la Cruz Family, Laton Alton Huffman, Jamie John, Mila Lynn, Dylan AT Miner, Gordon Newton, Michaela Nichelle, Lina Puerta, Abraham Rattner, Laurie Simmons, Larry Sprague, Joel Sternfeld, Tammy Tarbell-Boehning, Sarah Turkey, Julian Van Dyke, and Andy Warhol. Photos: @eatpomegranate

Architecture games for (at least) one human and one AI. Created as part of the preparations for the exhibition “City in the cloud, data on the ground” curated by Damjan Kokalevski at the architecture museum in Munich. Max Hallinan and I have been thinking about ways in which language and intelligence change our relationship with architecture. The games we made were part of a class I taught at KIT in Karlsruhe called “Phrases and Buildings.” My students made physical versions of some of the games we played including AI memory, an emoji riddle and “real or fake.” Come play with us at the @architekturmuseum_tum this October!

Fabulous end to a fabulous week putting #architectureondisplay during our seminar week at KIT. We learned how an architectural archive works, how a books is made and then curated six small exhibitions with our more than 1,000 book collection of children’s books focusing on architecture, cities and landscapes. In four days we went from concept to mock-up. I certainly have learned a lot! 🔥🔥🔥 #nextgen #futurecurators #exhibitiondesign #scenography #curating @saai_archive @kitbibliothek

Thirst trap for all model and/or exhibition buffs: Rolf Lederbogen’s exhibition models in the collection of @saai_archive 🤤🤤🤤. Where else have you seen exhibition models?

Snapshots from “Farmland” currently on at the Broad Art Museum. Among my favorite objects in this show are the WPA model barns, the crates featuring kitchen utensils and non-standardized eggs by @ambiguous.institute and a mural by @cookingsections . City Pulse writes: “A rich bounty of old and new art, along with historic photos and documents from the MSU Museum, delves into the mixed legacy of land grabs, unequal access to resources, food commodification and other awkward threads that dangle from the folksy, Lincolnesque tapestry of MSU’s land grant history. […] Is the Broad biting the land grant hand that feeds it? There may be a nibble here and there, but it’s more accurate to say that “Farmland” feeds the mind that beholds it — not only by serving up a visual feast but also by serving up food for thought on how and why land and food are sliced and diced, and who gets a seat at the table.”

Come and talk to me and Tom Wilkinson about architecture, theory, exhibitions or anything else you always wanted to know about architecture theory. January 29, 2 - 5 pm. Walk-ins welcome. There’s talk of popcorn.

My last show at the MSU Broad Art Museum opens January 18 looking at the ways that we have used and cultivated land. Farmland may look bucolic and serene in the images we often like to look at. But underneath such sunny pastures of cows and green grass lie the often painful stories of those who have been forced onto or off the land. The Tillage of America is still in the making. This show is sometimes sad, sometimes angry and sometimes it follows the beat of all those generations who have come before us and tried to find their own place in this seemingly never ending landscape. This land is your land! #farmland #thislandisyourland #sovereignty