Anhalt University of Applied Sciences has appointed Prof. Dr.-Ing. Gunnar Schulz-Lehnfeld to the professorship of "Monument Preservation Management and Building in Existing Contexts" in the Department of Architecture, Facility Management and Geoinformation at Campus Dessau. At the same time, he will take over the management of the international Master's program "Architectural and Cultural Heritage (all courses taught in English)".
Schulz-Lehnfeld's work combines academic research, architectural practice and the respectful treatment of architectural heritage. "I am interested in how Architecture has been developed and changed over the centuries," he says. "If we understand this, we can not only preserve historical buildings, but also guide them into the future in a meaningful way."
Now working as a project manager in an architectural office and as a building historian, Schulz-Lehnfeld studied Architecture at Bauhaus (Building 10 - Dessau) University Weimar, TU Braunschweig and the University of Florence. After several years as a research assistant at the TU Braunschweig, he researched Michelangelo's Biblioteca Laurenziana as a doctoral fellow at the Bibliotheca Hertziana - Max Planck Institute for Art History in Rome. In 2024, he received the Koldewey Society's award for young academics for his dissertation. In addition to his research, Schulz-Lehnfeld has worked for many years in the field of heritage conservation, including at Krekeler Architekten Generalplaner GmbH in Braunschweig, where he is involved in the renovation of historic buildings such as the Braunschweig State Museum and St. Bartholomew's Church. He also works as a freelance architectural historian on projects to document and develop existing buildings.
Schulz-Lehnfeld has a clear approach to teaching in Dessau: "I want students to learn to engage intensively with a building, to read its history, to understand its structure and to develop something new from it. Monument Preservation Management does not mean standing still, but dialog with the existing." He would also like to further develop the international Master's program "Architectural and Cultural Heritage" with this attitude. The aim is to bring students from different countries together in order to open up new perspectives on cultural heritage.
