Dr. Sang Pil Lee

Sang Pil Lee is a PhD candidate in the History and Theory of Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania. He pursues research on postwar urban and architectural history with a focus on the interrelationship of media, post-industrialism, and the development of environmental conceptions, as well as on transnational architectural exchanges. Sang Pil is currently completing his dissertation, titled “Expanded Environments: Isozaki Arata and Hans Hollein, Architects of the City and Its Media in the First Electronic Age, 1955-1976.” It explores the endeavors of postwar architects to create new living environments. His dissertation particularly focuses on how the modern concept of space was reconceptualized by the Japanese architect Isozaki and his Austrian correspondent Hollein into environmental notions of architecture within discourses on the city, electronic media, and post-industrialism and, as a result, how the concepts of environment, architecture, the city, and media became, in certain decisive contexts, interchangeable.

Sang Pil has presented his research on various occasions including the International Symposium on the Idea of Decentralization and Regional Planning in the 20th Century in Milan in 2018 and the SAH Annual International Conferences in 2020 and 2021. His work has been supported by the Japan Foundation, the Canadian Centre for Architecture, the Mellon Humanities, Urbanism, and Design Project at Penn, and the Botstiber Institute for Austrian-American Studies.