ORCiD
0000-0002-6873-5922

Clemens Finkelstein is a historian of the built environment and a theorist in the planetary humanities. He is currently:

Postdoctoral Research Associate & Coordinator of the Laboratories of Dis:connectivity at the Käte Hamburger Research Centre global dis:connect at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Germany

Fellow (Das Junge ZiF) at the Center for Interdisciplinary Research (ZiF: Zentrum für interdisziplinäre Forschung) at Bielefeld University, Germany

Affiliated Fellow at the Panel on Planetary Thinking at Justus Liebig University Giessen, Germany

He holds a Ph.D. in the History and Theory of Architecture from Princeton University, receiving Graduate Certificates in the History of Science and Media + Modernity.  As a Fulbright Scholar at Harvard University, he earned an M.Des. in the History and Philosophy of Design, graduating with a Commendation for Outstanding Achievement. His scholarship has been recognized through various fellowships, including at the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies, the Berlin Program for Advanced German and European Studies at the Free University Berlin, and the Center for Advanced Studies “Imaginaria of Force” at the University of Hamburg. Numerous grants have supported his work, including from the History of Science Society, the Andlinger Center for Energy and Environment, and the Princeton-Mellon Initiative in Architecture, Urbanism & the Humanities.

His transdisciplinary practice encompasses curation, publishing, teaching, and experimental art-science collaborations exhibited internationally. The book Planetary Forest (DISTANZ, 2024) documents one such project with bio- and geoscientists in the city forest of Frankfurt/a.M. His writing has appeared in several journals and edited volumes, including Sick Architecture (MIT Press, 2025), The Sound of Architecture (Leuven UP, 2022), Iconology of Abstraction (Routledge, 2020), Architectural Theory Review, ARCH+, and Technology & Culture. Currently, he is preparing three major book projects: a monograph, Architectures of Vibration: A Global History of Planetary Forces, based on his doctoral dissertation; a co-authored volume, Our Planetary Condition: Foundations for a Politics with the Earth; and a co-edited compendium, Roots to Skylines: Hybrid Labor and Planetary Building.

More information can be found at clemensfinkelstein.com.

Ph.D. History and Theory of Architecture (Princeton University, 2024)

M.A. History and Theory of Architecture (Princeton University, 2019)

M.Des. History and Philosophy of Design (Harvard University, 2017)

B.A. Art and Visual History (Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, 2014)

full & current CV upon request.