Ferda Kolatan
Associate Professor of Architecture
Director of the Master of Architecture Program
Profile
Ferda Kolatan is an Associate Professor of Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania Weitzman School of Design and a founding director of the award-winning practice SU11 Architecture + Design, based in New York. He earned his Architectural Diploma from RWTH Aachen and his M.S.AAD from Columbia University.
Mr. Kolatan’s work at SU11 has garnered international recognition and has been exhibited at venues such as MoMA, the FRAC Center, Walker Art Center, Vitra Design Museum, Art Basel, Artists Space NY, the Venice Architectural Biennale, the Architecture Biennial Beijing, and the Istanbul Design Biennial. He has published numerous articles and book chapters and co-authored the book Meander: Variegating Architecture in 2010. His new book, Misfits & Hybrids: Architectural Artifacts for the 21st-Century City, was published by Routledge in the spring of 2024. Mr. Kolatan's research studio on Cairo was awarded the AIA Architect Studio Prize and he was selected as a Young Society Leader by the Turkish American Society in New York.
Education
Dipl.Ing, RWTH Aachen
MSAAD, Columbia University
Select Publications
Books
Misfits & Hybrids: Architectural Artifacts for the 21st-Century City. London: Routledge, 2024.
Meander: Variegating Architecture. Exton: Bentley Institute Press, 2010.
Book Chapters (recent)
“A Miniature Architecture for A Miniature World.” In Design Technology and Digital Production: An Architecture Anthology, edited by Gabriel Esquivel, 115-118. London: Routledge, 2024.
“Balat Bits.” In A Purple Architecture: Design in the Age of the Physical-Virtual Continuum, edited by James F. Kerestes, Ebrahim Poustinchi, and Vahid Vadat, 160-167. Pittsburgh, PA: Carnegie Mellon University ETC Press, 2024.
“Oddkins, Hybrids, and Philosophies of Practice.” In Speaking of Architecture, edited by Mark Foster Gage, 56-77. Novato, CA: Oro Editions, 2023.
“Fake Architecture, Real Image.” In Spatio-Cinematic Betwixt, edited by Vahid Vadat and James F. Kerestes, 154-166. Bristol, UK: Intellect Books, 2023.
“Encounter with Morphosis.” In M3: modeled works [archive] 1972-2022 by Thom Mayne, Morphosis, 824-832. New York: Rizzoli, 2022.
“Real Fictions: A Case for Hybrid Architecture in Cairo.” In Architecture, Futurability and the Untimely, edited by Ingrid Mayrhofer-Hufnagl, 61-79. New York: transcript publishing, Columbia University Press, 2022.
“Conversation with Graham Harman & Manuel de Landa.” In Pratt Sessions Volume 2, edited by David Erdman, 56-59. San Rafael, CA: Applied Research + Design Publishing, 2021.
Select Exhibitions
CityX Virtual Pavilion, The 18th Venice Architecture Biennale, Venice, Italy. 2023.
Science Fiction(s), Welt Museum Wien, Vienna, Austria. 2023.
Model Behavior curated by ANY, The Cooper Union, New York, NY. 2022.
Edible; Or, The Architecture of Metabolism, The 6th Tallinn Architecture Biennale, Tallinn, Estonia. 2022.
A Mosaic of Unlikely Affinities, ACADIA 2022, Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, Philadelphia, PA. 2022.
FEEDback, The Italian Pavilion, 17th Venice Architecture Biennale, Venice, Italy. 2021.
One Object at a Time, A+D Museum, Los Angeles, CA. 2021.
Years of Solitude, Biennale d’Architecture d’Orleans, FRAC Centre-Val de Loire, Orleans, France. 2020.
100 Experiments: Inspiration in Design Processes, Aedes Architecture Forum, Berlin, Germany. 2019.
Utopian Imagination, Ford Foundation, New York, NY. 2019.
Supercity and Iskandar Puteri 100YC, The 16th Venice Architecture Biennale, Venice, Italy. 2018.
Time, Space, Architecture, The European Cultural Center, Palazzo Mora, Venice, Italy. 2018.
Real Fictions, Egyptian Pavilion, 15th Venice Architecture Biennale, Venice, Italy. 2016.
Close-up, The SCI-Arc Gallery, Los Angeles, CA. 2016.
Musibet, Istanbul Design Biennial, The Istanbul Modern, Istanbul, Turkey. 2012.
Machinic Processes, The Architecture Beijing Biennale 2010, Beijing, China. 2010.
Life in:formation, ACADIA 2010. The Cooper Union, New York, NY. 2010.
YAP 10th Anniversary Review, MoMA PS1, New York, NY. 2009.
AAST Advanced Architecture Settimo Tokyo, Torino, Italy. 2009.
Matters of Sensation, Artists Space, New York, NY. 2008.
YAP Finalists Exhibition, Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY. 2008.
Open House: Intelligent Living by Design, Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein. 2006.
Strangely Familiar: Design and Everyday Life, The Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN. 2003.
Kolatan, Ferda. Misfits & Hybrids: Architectural Artifacts for the 21st-Century City. London: Routledge, 2024.
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