Mari Lending is a Professor of Architectural Theory and History and the head of the Department of Form, Theory and History at the Oslo School of Architecture and Design. She is a senior researcher in the research project, Place and Displacement: Exhibiting Architecture (funded by Norwegian Research Council from 2011-14) and is currently writing a book, The Art of Collecting Architecture.

She holds a M. Litt (Mag. art) in Comparative Literature on Marcel Proust from the University of Oslo in 1997 and defended her Ph.D. dissertation on historiography at the Oslo School of Architecture and Design in 2005. From 2005 to 2009, Lending was a postdoctoral fellow on the research project, Modernism on Display. Lending has been a visiting scholar at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University and Columbia University.

Lending has written widely on literature and architecture as well as edited book series and various journals on cultural critique and modernist prose. She is the editor-in-chief of Nordic Journal of Architecture, co-editor for exhibitions for the European Architecture History Network’s Newsletterand sits on the editorial board of Arkitektur N and the book series As-Built. Her book, Omkring 1900: Kontinuiteter i norsk arkitekturtenkning (2007), critically rethinks concepts of historicism and modernism in 19th and 20th century Norwegian architectural discourse.

Selected work:

Omkring 1900. Kontinuiteter i norsk arkitekturtenkning, Oslo: Pax Forlag 2007.

”Prousts museum”, i Karin Gundersen og Mari Lending (red.), Kopi & original. Inversjoner i opprinnelsestenkningens historie, Oslo: Scandinavian Academic Press 2011

”Architecture at the limit. Peter Zumthor’s Witchburning Memorial in Vardø”, in Steilneset minnested, Oslo: Press forlag 2011

“Writing a Life from the Inside of a Drawing: Stendhal’s Vie de Henry Brulard”, Chora 6. Intervals in the Philosophy of Architecture, Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press 2011

“Glassets feaktige prakt. M.J. Monrad om arkitekturens oppløsning”, Nytt norsk tidsskrift 1/2011

“Arkitekturmuseum. Mediert arkitektur på utstilling”, in Bjarne Rogan og Arne Bugge Eriksen (eds..),Samling og museum. Kapitler av museenes historie, praksis og ideologi, Oslo: Novus forlag 2010.

“Spøkelsesmuseer. Arkitektonisk gipsskulptur”, Agora 3/2010, Oslo: Aschehoug forlag.

“Museum on Display”, in Høyum, Langdalen, Vaa (eds.), Holl, Hamsun, Hamarøy, Baden, Sveits: Lars Müller Publishers 2010.

“Écorché vif. Installation à la Biennale de Venise de Jorge Otero-Pailos”, Geneve: Faces. Journal d’architecture 67/2010.

“Historisk Røntgen. Arkitekturfremstilling i W.G. Sebalds Austerlitz”, Vinduet 1/2010 Oslo: Gyldendal forlag 2010.

“Negotiating Absence. Bernard Tschumi’s new Acropolis Museum in Athens”, Journal on Architecture, vol 15, no. 5/2009.

“Landscape Versus Museum. J.C. Dahl and the Preservation of Norwegian Burial Mounds”, Future Anterior. Journal on Historic Preservation. History, Theory, & Criticism, vol.6 no 1/2009.

“Poetisk tale om arkitekturen”, Arkitektur N, 3/2009.

“Arkitekturhistorie som bygningshistorisk katalog”, (ed. Peter Butenschøn), Tiden og arkitekturen. Om å bygge i fire dimensjoner, Oslo: Akademisk publisering 2009.

“Revisiting the Exotic. Space Group and Norwegian Architectural Culture”, Untitled 2000-2008. Space Group/Norway. Monography. Damdi Architectural Publishers, South-Korea: Seoul 2008.

“Permanent og kontemporært. Tidlige variasjoner av en norsk arkitektursamling”, Nordisk museologi, 1-2/2008.

“Modernisme på utstilling”, Nytt norsk tidsskrift 3/2008.

“Politisert materialestetikk. Det norske ambassadekomplekster i Berlin som orkestrering av nasjonal forskjell”, Byggekunst 8/2006.

“Den norske iscenesettelsen av modernismen som historie”, Nordic Journal of Architectural Research, 1/2006.