Material Theories takes a radically new approach to well-established thinking on nineteenth-century architecture and design by investigating Gottfried Semper's classic ideas about dressing, metamorphosis of material, and cultural development, culminating in his two-volume publication Style.
Elena Chestnova is a researcher at the Institute for History and Theory of Art and Architecture of the Academy of Architecture in Mendrisio, Switzerland. She has completed her PhD dissertation in Mendrisio after studying architecture at the University of Cambridge and the ETH Zurich.