Mari Lending

Professor Institute of Architecture

Email: Mari.Lending@aho.no
Phone: +47 22 99 70 91

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Background and experience

Mari Lending is a professor of architectural theory and history at the Oslo School of Architecture and Design, and a founding member of OCCAS (the Oslo Centre for Critical Architectural Studies). Among her books are Plaster Monuments. Architecture and the Power of Reproduction (Princeton University Press, 2017); with Peter Zumthor, A Feeling of History (Scheidegger & Spiess, 2018); with Erik Langdalen, Sverre Fehn, Nordic Pavilion, Venice. Voices from the Archives (Lars Müller Publishers, 2021); Warburg Models: Buildings as Bilderfahrzeuge, with Tim Anstey (Hatje Cantz, 2023), and Uwe Fleckner&Mari Lending (eds.), Provenance in Architecture. A Dictionary (Hatje Cantz, 2025). She was the president of the European Architectural History Network (EAHN) 2022–24 (vice-president 2020–22). She is the director of the international research project Provenance Projected: Architecture Past and Future in the Era of Circularity, and is presently working on a the monograph Auctioning Architecture.

Projects

Research groups

OCCAS

Lending, Mari; Mitchell, Simon & Rieger, Alena Beth (2025). Introduction: The Potential of Provenance. Future Anterior. ISSN 1549-9715. 22(1-2), p. iii–viii. doi: 10.1353/fta.2025.a982224. Full text in Research Archive
Lending, Mari (2025). Quote. In Fleckner, Uwe & Lending, Mari (Ed.), Provenance in Architecture. A Dictionary. Hatje Cantz Verlag. ISSN 9783775761147. p. 159–161. Full text in Research Archive
Lending, Mari (2025). Plaster Cast. In Fleckner, Uwe & Lending, Mari (Ed.), Provenance in Architecture. A Dictionary. Hatje Cantz Verlag. ISSN 9783775761147. p. 143–144. Full text in Research Archive
Lending, Mari (2025). Photography. In Fleckner, Uwe & Lending, Mari (Ed.), Provenance in Architecture. A Dictionary. Hatje Cantz Verlag. ISSN 9783775761147. p. 142–143. Full text in Research Archive
Lending, Mari (2025). Crisis. In Fleckner, Uwe & Lending, Mari (Ed.), Provenance in Architecture. A Dictionary. Hatje Cantz Verlag. ISSN 9783775761147. p. 69–71. Full text in Research Archive
Lending, Mari (2023). "Boret store hull i uerstattelig oldsak": Sverre Fehn og bronsealderen. In Aukrust, Kjerstin & Uvsløkk, Geir (Ed.), Tid og historie. Festskrift til Gro Bjørnerud Mo. Novus Forlag. ISSN 9788283901184. p. 133–152. Full text in Research Archive
Lending, Mari & Anstey, Tim Ainsworth (2023). Warburg Models, Warburg Models: Buildings as Bilderfahrzeuge. Hatje Cantz Verlag. ISSN 9783775755207. p. 8–19. Full text in Research Archive Show summary
Architecture and interiors were crucial for Aby Warburg’s interrogation of culture, a focus that was at once intellectual, visceral, historical and contemporary. As well as understanding how architecture had shaped systems of cultural orientation in the past, for Warburg and his followers this involved a continual process of architectural commissioning in the present. Between 1923 and 1958 designs were initiated for a collection of buildings, interiors and exhibitions, as the Warburg library moved through a series of homes, first in Hamburg then in London. All these projects provided opportunities for expressing the relationship between architecture, intellectual order, and memory. Warburg Models. Buildings as Bilderfahrzeuge sheds new light on Warburg’s involvement with architecture, portraying six building projects from archival material. Detailed architectural models made by students at the Oslo School of Architecture and Design, and accompanying contributions from Dag Erik Elgin, Uwe Fleckner, Elizabeth Sears, Bill Sherman, and Claudia Wedepohl, show how architectural repetition, re-inscription and movement shaped a seminal research institution.
Lending, Mari (2022). Architectural Antiquisation. Footprint. ISSN 1875-1504. 15(2), p. 131–144. doi: 10.7480/footprint.15.2.6108. Full text in Research Archive
Lending, Mari (2022). Transient Permanence. RA. Revista de Arquitectura. ISSN 1138-5596. 24, p. 18–33. doi: 10.15581/014.24.18-33. Full text in Research Archive
Lending, Mari (2021). Architectural Antiquization. Footprint. ISSN 1875-1504. 15(29), p. 131–144. doi: 10.7480/footprint.15.2. Full text in Research Archive
Lending, Mari (2021). Teaching Architecture Full Scale. In Schrijver, Lara (Eds.), The Tacit Dimension. Architecture, Knowledge, and Scientific Research. Leuven University Press. ISSN 9789461663818. p. 37–54. doi: 10.11116/9789461663801. Full text in Research Archive
Lending, Mari (2021). Iliaden som kinetisk skulptur. Agora Journal for metafysisk spekulasjon. ISSN 0800-7136. p. 3–18. doi: 10.18261/issn.1500-1571-2021-03-01. Full text in Research Archive
Lending, Mari (2020). Invented Ex Situ. Future Anterior. ISSN 1549-9715. 15(2), p. 1–15. doi: 10.5749/futuante.15.2.0001. Full text in Research Archive
Lending, Mari (2020). Dansende søyler. Kunst og Kultur. ISSN 0023-5415. p. 130–143. doi: 10.18261/issn.1504-3029-2020-03-03. Full text in Research Archive
Lending, Mari (2019). Lost Continents, Projective Objects. In Brenna, Brita Astrid Staxrud; Christensen, Hans Dam & Hamran, Olav (Ed.), Museums as Cultures of Copies. The Crafting of Artefacts and Authenticity. Routledge. ISSN 9780815364917. p. 73–84. doi: 10.4324/9781351106498-8. Full text in Research Archive
Lending, Mari (2018). Fabrics of Reality: Art and Architecture in László Krasznahorkai. In Sioli, Angeliki & Jung, Yoonchun (Ed.), Reading Architecture. Literary Imagination and Architectural Experience. Routledge. ISSN 9781138224278. p. 49–60. doi: 10.4324/9781315402901-6. Full text in Research Archive
Lending, Mari & Anstey, Tim Ainsworth (2018). Moving Egypt. In Lending, Mari; Bøhn, Eirik Arff Gulseth & Anstey, Tim Ainsworth (Ed.), Images of Egypt. Pax Forlag. ISSN 9788253040813. p. 31–98. Full text in Research Archive
Lending, Mari (2018). Cablegram. In Hvattum, Mari & Hultzsch, Anne Katrin (Ed.), The Printed and the Built. Architecture, Print Culture and Public Debate in the Nineteenth Century. Bloomsbury Academic. ISSN 9781350038417. p. 151–155. doi: 10.5040/9781350038387.ch-008. Full text in Research Archive
Lending, Mari (2016). "CHAMBRE/Rom". In Stene-Johansen, Knut; Refsum, Christian & Schimanski, Johan Henrik (Ed.), Å leve sammen. Roland Barthes, individet og fellesskapet. Spartacus. ISSN 9788230401781. p. 145–153. Full text in Research Archive
Lending, Mari (2016). Reciting the Tomb of Tutankhamen. Perspecta: The Yale Architectural Journal. ISSN 0079-0958. 49(1), p. 78–88. Full text in Research Archive
Lending, Mari (2015). Promenade among Words and Things: The Gallery as Catalogue, the Catalogue as Gallery. Architectural Histories. 3, p. 1–22. doi: 10.5334/ah.da. Full text in Research Archive
Lending, Mari (2015). The Urgencies of Theoretical Stuff. In Graham, James (Eds.), 2000+: the urgencies of architectural theory. GSAPP Books. ISSN 9781941332078. p. 144–160. Full text in Research Archive
Lending, Mari (2015). Out of Place: Circulating Monuments. In Pelkonen, Eeva-Liisa (Eds.), Exhibiting Architecture: A Paradox?. Yale School of Architecture. ISSN 9781940291598. p. 25–32. Full text in Research Archive
Lending, Mari (2015). The Art of Collecting Architecture. Volume. ISSN 1574-9401. p. 16–25. Full text in Research Archive Show summary
What do we think of when we ask where the most important places for the development of contemporary architecture is? Is it schools, museums or practices? Maybe even specific people, or boardroom luncheons? What if we were to suggest none of these but rather the auction house? Especially today, it's hard to think of architecture without the markets it circulates in and the forces that make it move. Mari Lending has uncovered an interesting turn of events that is not nearly as new as we might suspect. Debates surrounding whether architecture is art or not are undoubtedly one of the eternal questions of the discipline, but sometimes, especially on the auction block and in the eyes of speculative investors, that decision is made not by but on behalf of the discipline. We might even be surprised at how important the distinction between art and other commodity forms being made in the auction house actually is.
Lending, Mari (2014). The Permanent Collection of 1925: Oslo Modernism in Paper and Models. Architectural Histories. 2(1)(3), p. 1–14. doi: 10.5334/ah.be. Full text in Research Archive Show summary
In 1925, architect Georg Eliassen took the initiative to establish a collection of drawings, photography and scale models in response to an increasing frustration among Norwegian architect of not being able to participate in international architectural exhibitions. The so-called Permanent Collection was founded on a principle of absolute contemporaneity, making de-acquisition as important as acquisition in the management of the collection. Nevertheless, the collection kept increasing. By the mid 1930s it included hundreds of models and innumerable drawings and photos and was seen as nucleus of an entire museum of Norwegian architecture. This ambition failed, and the material that had been so intensively displayed in Kiel, Budapest, Helsinki, Berlin, Prague, and Paris, before making its last appearance at the World’s Fair in New York in 1939, was buried in storage, dispersed, or destroyed. Based on extensive archival research, this article chronicles a forgotten collection, framing it within a modernist culture of collecting and exhibiting architecture.
Lending, Mari (2014). Traveling portals. In Lending, Mari; Arrhenius, Thordis Eva K; Miller, Wallis Jo & McGowan, Jérémie (Ed.), Place and Displacement: Exhibiting Architecture. Lars Müller Publishers. ISSN 9783037784167. p. 197–212. Full text in Research Archive

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Fleckner, Uwe & Lending, Mari (2025). Provenance in Architecture. A Dictionary. Hatje Cantz Verlag. ISBN 9783775761147. 236 p. Full text in Research Archive
Lending, Mari; Skajaa, Joakim & Berre, Nina (2024). Project: Trosterudstien 1 : Architects: Wenche & Jens Selmer. Pax Forlag. ISBN 9788253045245. 252 p. Full text in Research Archive
Lending, Mari (2024). Fra Brasil. Pax Forlag. ISBN 9788253044170. 182 p. Full text in Research Archive
Jensen, Jan Olav; Lending, Mari; Tandberg, Jørgen Johan; Ellefsen, Karl Otto & Skodvin, Børre (2024). Villa Furulund Architect: Lund Hagem Arkitekter AS asBUILT 31. Pax Forlag. ISBN 9788253045221. 200 p. Full text in Research Archive
Anstey, Tim Ainsworth & Lending, Mari (2023). Warburg Models: Buildings as Bilderfahrzeuge. Hatje Cantz Verlag. ISBN 9783775755207. 88 p. Full text in Research Archive Show summary
Architecture and interiors were crucial for Aby Warburg’s interrogation of culture, a focus that was at once intellectual, visceral, historical and contemporary. As well as understanding how architecture had shaped systems of cultural orientation in the past, for Warburg and his followers this involved a continual process of architectural commissioning in the present. Between 1923 and 1958 designs were initiated for a collection of buildings, interiors and exhibitions, as the Warburg library moved through a series of homes, first in Hamburg then in London. All these projects provided opportunities for expressing the relationship between architecture, intellectual order, and memory. Warburg Models. Buildings as Bilderfahrzeuge sheds new light on Warburg’s involvement with architecture, portraying six building projects from archival material. Detailed architectural models made by students at the Oslo School of Architecture and Design, and accompanying contributions from Dag Erik Elgin, Uwe Fleckner, Elizabeth Sears, Bill Sherman, and Claudia Wedepohl, show how architectural repetition, re-inscription and movement shaped a seminal research institution.
Gleditsch, Espen & Lending, Mari (2022). Parthenon Provenances. Heavy Books. ISBN 9788293580188. 12 p. Full text in Research Archive
Lending, Mari & Langdalen, Erik Fenstad (2021). Sverre Fehn, Nordic Pavilion, Venice Voices from the Archive. Mari Lending og Erik Langdalen. Lars Müller Publishers. ISBN 9788253042206. 296 p. Full text in Research Archive
Lending, Mari (2021). G for Gypsum. Merrell. ISBN 9781858946979. 4 p. Full text in Research Archive
Lending, Mari (2021). G for Gypsum. Merrell. ISBN 9781858946979. 4 p. Full text in Research Archive
Lending, Mari & Langdalen, Erik Fenstad (2021). Sverre Fehn, Nordic Pavilion, Venice. Voices from the Archives. Lars Müller Publishers. ISBN 9783037786390. 296 p. Full text in Research Archive
Berre, Nina & Lending, Mari (2019). Villa Stenersen. Pax Forlag. ISBN 9788253041445. 474 p. Full text in Research Archive
Lending, Mari (2019). Blindness and Insight i Marianne Heier, And their Spirits live on. osloBiennalen. ISBN 9782940524648. 9 p. Full text in Research Archive
Lending, Mari & Zumthor, Peter (2018). A Feeling of History. Scheidegger & Spiess. ISBN 9783858818058. 82 p. Full text in Research Archive
Lending, Mari; Bøhn, Eirik Arff Gulseth & Anstey, Tim Ainsworth (2018). Images of Egypt. Pax Forlag. ISBN 9788253040813. 288 p. Full text in Research Archive
Lending, Mari (2017). Plaster Monuments. Architecture and the Power of Reproduction. Princeton University Press. ISBN 9780691177144. 284 p. Full text in Research Archive
Lending, Mari; Arrhenius, Thordis Eva K; Miller, Wallis Jo & McGowan, Jérémie (2014). Place and Displacement: Exhibiting Architecture. Lars Müller Publishers. ISBN 9783037784167. 248 p. Full text in Research Archive
Berre, Nina & Lending, Mari (2014). Villa Schreiner. Pax Forlag. ISBN 9788253036830. 157 p. Full text in Research Archive

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Lending, Mari (2025). Ocean Images. Full text in Research Archive
Lending, Mari (2025). CUT: Recovering fragments and the ethics of architectural disassembly. Full text in Research Archive
Lending, Mari (2025). Vita Sackville-West: Auctions on the premises. Full text in Research Archive
Lending, Mari & Fleckner, Uwe (2024). Architectural provenance. A preamble. In Fleckner, Uwe & Lending, Mari (Ed.), Provenance in Architecture. A Dictionary. Hatje Cantz Verlag. ISSN 9783775761147. p. 7–13. Full text in Research Archive
Langdalen, Erik Fenstad & Lending, Mari (2024). Fehn i verden. Arkitektur. ISSN 2704-0925. Full text in Research Archive
Lending, Mari (2024). Sverre Fehn hos Jean Prouvé. Arkitektur. ISSN 2704-0925. 2(6), p. 76–81. Full text in Research Archive
Lending, Mari (2024). Auctioning Architecture. Full text in Research Archive
Lending, Mari (2024). Fehn at Ateliers Prouvé. Full text in Research Archive
Lending, Mari (2024). Sverre Fehn: Piercing History. Full text in Research Archive
Lending, Mari (2024). Geopolitics and Aggregates. The Nordic Pavilion, Venice. Full text in Research Archive
Lending, Mari (2024). Topical Chronotopes: The Parthenon. Full text in Research Archive
Lending, Mari (2023). Book review. Design and Culture. ISSN 1754-7075. doi: 10.1080/17547075.2023.2213520. Full text in Research Archive
Lending, Mari (2023). Provenance Projected: Before the fact. Full text in Research Archive
Lending, Mari (2023). Crafting History: Archiving and the Quest for Architectural History. Design and Culture. ISSN 1754-7075. doi: 10.1080/17547075.2023.2213520. Full text in Research Archive
Lending, Mari (2022). Parthenon-provenienser. En gipshistorie. Full text in Research Archive
Lending, Mari (2021). The Nordic Pavilion in Venice: An Intra-Canonical Outlook. Full text in Research Archive
Lending, Mari (2021). Monuments en route. Shipping plaster architecture in the nineteenth century. Full text in Research Archive
Lending, Mari (2021). Falser, Angkor Wat. A TransculturalHistory of Heritage. Sculpture Journal. ISSN 1366-2724. 30(3), p. 373–376. Full text in Research Archive
Lending, Mari (2020). Returning to distorted origins. In Lowe, Adam (Eds.), The aura in the age of digital materiality. Rethinking preservation in the shadow of an uncertain future. Silvana Editoriale. ISSN 9788836645480. p. 57–64. Full text in Research Archive
Lending, Mari (2019). Images of Egypt, a curator perspective. Full text in Research Archive
Lending, Mari (2019). Monumentalitet og materialitet. Full text in Research Archive
Lending, Mari (2019). Kleopatra som seksualisert kunstverk. Agora Journal for metafysisk spekulasjon. ISSN 0800-7136. p. 92–98. Full text in Research Archive
Lending, Mari (2019). Plaster Origins, in Print. Full text in Research Archive
Lending, Mari (2019). Monument Survival and a Tyranny of States. Architectural Histories. Summer 2019. doi: 10.5334/ah.429. Full text in Research Archive
Jones, Emma; Pollard, Carole; Lending, Mari & Kodzhabasheva, Ani (2019). Monument Survival and a Tyranny of States. Architectural Histories. doi: 10.5334/ah.429. Full text in Research Archive
Lending, Mari (2019). Historical and Contemporary. Plaster Monument Modernity. Full text in Research Archive
Lending, Mari (2019). Plaster Monuments. Full text in Research Archive
Lending, Mari (2019). Temperert modernitet, Byggekunst 1919–1939. Arkitektur N. ISSN 1504-7628. Full text in Research Archive
Lending, Mari (2018). Egypt i bevegelse. Full text in Research Archive
Lending, Mari & Mollerin, Kaja Schjerven (2018). Athen: Erindringsforstyrrelser og usamtidighet. Agora Journal for metafysisk spekulasjon. ISSN 0800-7136. 35(4), p. 3–11. Full text in Research Archive
Lending, Mari (2018). "Theory" Roundtable. Full text in Research Archive
Lending, Mari (2018). Chambre/Room. In Stene-Johansen, Knut; Refsum, Christian & Schimanski, Johan (Ed.), Living Together – Roland Barthes, the Individual and the Community. Transcript Verlag. ISSN 9783837644319. p. 117–124. Full text in Research Archive
Lending, Mari (2018). Teaching Architecture Full Scale, key note lecture, TU Delft. Full text in Research Archive
Lending, Mari (2018). Patina, Abstraction, and History. Full text in Research Archive
Lending, Mari (2018). Preserved in Plaster. In Cormier, Brendan (Eds.), Copy Culture: Sharing in the Age of Digital Reproduction. V&A Publishing. ISSN 9781851779840. p. 41–50. Full text in Research Archive
Lending, Mari (2018). Tilbake til arkitekturverket. Morgenbladet. ISSN 0805-3847. p. 54–55. Full text in Research Archive
Lending, Mari (2017). Plaster Chronologies. Full text in Research Archive
Lending, Mari (2017). Building with Digital Fragments. Full text in Research Archive
Lending, Mari (2017). Rome in Paris, Paris in Pittsburgh. Circulating Plaster Monuments. Full text in Research Archive
Lending, Mari (2017). Invented ex-situ. Full text in Research Archive
Lending, Mari (2017). Plaster Monuments. Full text in Research Archive
Lending, Mari (2017). Fløgstads sovjetminner. Vinduet. ISSN 0042-6288. p. 104–115. Full text in Research Archive
Lending, Mari (2017). Small Museums: Sentimentality and Idiosyncrasy. Full text in Research Archive
Lending, Mari (2017). Nytt fra Kongenes dal. Full text in Research Archive
Lending, Mari (2017). Farao Augustus. Vinduet. ISSN 0042-6288. p. 24–35. Full text in Research Archive
Lending, Mari & Pelkonen, Eeva-Liisa (2016). Time Travel. Full text in Research Archive
Lending, Mari (2016). Experimental Vandalism, (London). In Otero-Pailos, Jorge; Langdalen, Erik Fenstad & Arrhenius, Thordis Eva K (Ed.), Experimental Preservation. Lars Müller Publishers. ISSN 9783037784921. p. 125–169. Full text in Research Archive
Lending, Mari (2016). Paul Rudolph's Shells, a Micro History. Full text in Research Archive
Lending, Mari (2016). Lost Continents, Projective Objects, Keynote lecture. Full text in Research Archive
Lending, Mari (2016). Nøden i Venedig. Full text in Research Archive
Lending, Mari (2015). Experimental Vandalism. Full text in Research Archive
Lending, Mari (2015). Casting a Cast. Full text in Research Archive
Lending, Mari (2015). Fabrics of Reality in Fiction. Full text in Research Archive
Lending, Mari (2015). The Yale Battle of Casts: Albers vs. Rudolph. Full text in Research Archive
Lending, Mari & Hvattum, Mari (2014). Model Temporalities. In Lending, Mari & Hvattum, Mari (Ed.), Modelling Time. The Permanent Collection 1925-2014. Torpedo Press. ISSN 9788293104155. p. 9–68. Full text in Research Archive
Lending, Mari (2014). Kopiering og kanonisering: Tuthankhamon-facsimilen i Luxor. Full text in Research Archive
Lending, Mari (2014). Invented in Translation. Full text in Research Archive

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Published Aug. 20, 2024 4:29 PM - Last modified June 8, 2026 10:26 AM