Ph.D. Sam Koh, since Oktober 2021
This dissertation explores how science and technology shaped the goals and purposes of spatial intervention in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Britain. It hypothesises that cosmologies—fundamental models of universal order, including ontological, epistemic and temporal ideas—have played a significant but under-theorised role in shaping the early institutions of urban planning. This inquiry draws on recent work in political theory and STS which has shown that scientific knowledge, far from being a neutral tool for the pusuit of predetermined ends, has acted as a productive force in reshaping the political goals that humans consider valid and meaningful. The dissertation applies these insights to the history of British planning, by situating early planning discourse within nineteenth century developments in the natural, historical and social sciences. The project aims to outline the theoretical connection between this changing cosmological context and the emergence of a goal of social improvement which was embedded in early British planning institutions. It examines how new methods of measuring and controlling urban reality (such as zoning and social cartography) were not merely instrumental, but played a decisive role in constituting and legitimising new ideas about the just and righteous management of the city. It also examines how these ideas entered the political discourses that shaped early British town planning acts. Ultimately, it argues that the goal of social improvement in spatial intervention gained legitimacy through arguments which linked it to the ideas about the natural order.
Samuel Koh is a writer, researcher, and PhD candidate in the History and Theory of Modern Architecture at the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar. His research focuses on the ways in which science and technology are implicated in the shifting narratives of human purpose in urban planning. His dissertation examines key moments in the history of Western urban thought, focusing on how cosmological ideas have transformed the goals and values of the urban professions.
He teaches graduate courses on urban history and theory at the Technische Hochschule Nürnberg, and was previously a designer and researcher at earth.net. He holds an M.A in Architecture from Hochschule Anhalt, Germany and a B.Arch from the University of Queensland, Australia. His doctoral research is supported by the Ernst-Abbe-Stiftung.