Dr Caroline Rabourdin PhD | M.Arch | dipArch

Teaching and Module co-ordination

ARCT1008 Contemporary Theories of Architecture, BA Architecture (level 5)

ARCT1064 Theories of Architecture, MArch Architecture (level 7)

ARCT1060 Architectural Thesis, MArch Architecture (level 7)

Academic Citizenship

Admissions Interviews

Academic Tutoring

Research affiliations

Steering Group Member of the Centre for Research in Language and Heritage (CREL)

Member of the Centre for Spatial and Digital Ecologies

2023 Collaborative Research Fund awarded by the University for Greenwich for ‘Convivial Spaces: Forms and Figures or Encounters in Writing and Architecture’, with Dr Katarina Stenke.

2023 GOLD Advance HE Fellow, FHEA

2019 Developing Your Creative Practice (DYCP) funding awarded by the Arts Council England

2018 UCL Student Choice Awards — Nominee for Inspiring Teaching Delivery

2001 Distinction in Design and Theory, Masters in Architecture, Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL

2000 Entente Cordiale Scholarship awarded by the British Council

Caroline Rabourdin’s research interests include spatial theory, art writing, spatial literature, phenomenology, post-structuralist theory, translation studies and comparative literature.

A trained and experienced architect, her practice over the last decade has moved to art writing, with particular focus on the essay as a performative, creative and non-linear form of writing. As a bilingual writer, she is interested in the potential for translation, and comparative approaches to language to give rise to new ideas. She considers essay writing as a critical and creative practice and the space between languages as a productive space for new architectural ideas.

In her monograph Sense in Translation: Essays on the Bilingual Body (Routledge, 2020), she argues for an embodied understanding of translation whereby the analogy between linguistic translation and spatial translation is much more than a simple comparison. Informed by phenomenology and in particular Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s work on sens, this innovative and interdisciplinary collection of essays draws from philosophers and post-structuralist thinkers such as Jacques Derrida, Hélène Cixous, as well as writers such as Michel Butor, Louis Wolfson and Lisa Robertson. Ultimately, the essays tend towards the realisation that linguistic translation and spatial translation can no longer be categorised as distinct, but rather join in the capacity of our bodies to sense and in our desire to make sense.

Caroline has read at numerous international symposiums on modern languages, comparative literature and the arts, including the ACLA symposium at Harvard University and the Arts in Translation Biennale in Reykjavik and has published works in English and in French in architecture magazines and peer-reviewed journals and books.

She welcomes PhD applications related to the following areas of study:

• Literature and Architecture
• Translation, Multilingualism and Multiculturalism in Architecture
• Post-colonial Architecture
• Post-Structuralist Writing
• Art Writing
• Site Writing

Key funded projects

2019 Arts Council England, DYCP funding for the "Translation as Re-Writing” project

The project explores the materiality and embodied nature of literary translation. It involves collaborative work with graphic designer Matthew Chrislip and translator Sophie Lewis throughout the process of translation of Mireille Calle-Gruber’s essay “L’Essai comme forme de réécriture: Cixous à Montaigne” from French to English.

Book

• Rabourdin, C. (2020) Sense in Translation: Essays on the Bilingual Body. NY: Routledge.

Articles and Book chapters

• Rabourdin, C. (2023) ‘Being outside inside Oran: Deconstruction, translation and architecture in Hélène Cixous’s “Promised cities”’, The Translator, 29(4), pp. 435–448.
• Rabourdin, C. (2018) ‘The expanding space of the train carriage- A phenomenological reading of Michel Butor’s La Modification’, in Riquet, J. and Kollmann, E. (eds.) Spatial Modernities: Geography, Narrative, Imaginaries. NY: Routledge.

• Rabourdin, C. (2016) ‘Walking and Writing: Paul Auster’s map of the Tower of Babel’, in Peraldo, E. (ed.) Literature and Geography. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

• Rabourdin, C. (2016) ‘Spatial Translation and embodied Bilingualism’ in CALL: Irish Journal for Culture, Arts, Literature and Language, Vol.1: Issue 1, Article 12.

Interdisciplinary translation project

• Rabourdin, C., Lewis, S. and Chrislip, M (2023) “The essay as forms of rewriting: Cixous to Montaigne”, translation of Mireille Calle-Gruber’s “L’essai comme forme de réécriture: Cixous à Montaigne”, published in Études françaises vol. 40, n° 1, 2004, p. 29-42. Experimental digital publication, Funded by the Arts Council England and supported by LibraryStack.

Essays

• Rabourdin, C. (2016) ‘Le Corps Géométrique en Mouvement’, Architectures Crée No.375, Avril-Mai.
• Rabourdin, C. (2015) ‘The Titleer’, Non-Sense AArchitecture No.26, London: AA Print Studio

• Rabourdin, C. (2024) ‘Convivial Spaces: Forms and Figures of Encounter in Writing and Architecture, London Conference in Critical Thought (LCCT), University of Greenwich.
• Rabourdin, C. Chrislip, M. and Lewis, S. (2024) ‘The Essay as Forms of Rewriting: An architect, a translator and a graphic designer at work’, CREL, University of Greenwich.
• Rabourdin, C. (2023) ‘Spatial models and affects: Scanlab’s Frozen Relics: Artic Works & Framerate: Pulse of the Earth’, London Conference in Critical Thought (LCCT), London Metropolitan University.
• Rabourdin, C. (2023) SHIFT Conference of Learning and Teaching in Higher Education, University of Greenwich. ‘Embedding Equality, Diversity and Inclusion in the Curriculum’
• Rabourdin, C. (2019) ‘Le droit à la langue de l’autre’, Conference : 23^rrd International Symposium for Phenomenology, L’Epreuve de l’Etranger: Translation, Migration, Resistance. Organised by Shela Sheikh, Emmanuel Alloa and Delia Popa. Perugia, Italy.
• Rabourdin, C. (2018) ‘Roland Barthes in 1968 Reviews’, Conference: 1968 in Reviews, University of Birmingham, School of Languages, Cultures, Art History and Music. 2018. Birmingham, UK.
• Rabourdin, C. (2017) ‘The Mobile Space of the Essay’ Conference: Warp/Weft’ international conference on multidisciplinarity, organised by Monash University and University of Tasmania in Prato, Italy.
• Rabourdin, C. (2017) ‘Title to be Specified*’, preceded by 'An Incomplete Log of the Lost Conversations between the Peasant Poet and the Metropolitan Gypsy' with the participation of Joyce Chen, AA School of Architecture Public Lecture, London, UK.
• Rabourdin, C. (2016) ‘Perec: Movement, Mobility, Motility’, Conference: ‘George Perec’s Geographies/ Perecquian Geographies’ conference, Sheffield University, UK.
• Rabourdin, C. (2016) ‘Louis Wolfson’s reformed body’, Conference: ACLA conference, Cambridge (MA) Harvard University, USA.
• Rabourdin, C. (2015) ‘Walking and Writing: Paul Auster’s map of the Tower of Babel’, Conference: ‘Literature and Geography’ conference, Université Jean Moulin III & IETT, Lyon, France.
• Rabourdin, C. (2014) ‘Making sense of Caroline Bergvall’s multilingual poetry: The space between langues and Lecercle’s Philosophy of Nonsense’, Conference: ‘Art in Translation’ Interdisciplinary conference, University of Iceland, Reykjavik.
• Rabourdin, C. (2013) ‘The expanding space of the train carriage- A phenomenological reading of Michel Butor’s La Modification’, conference: ‘Travelling Narratives: Modernity and the Spatial Imaginary’, Zurich University, Switzerland.
• Rabourdin, C. (2012) ‘Le Sens de la Translation: Understanding Geometrical Translation as an Embodied and Sensory Practice.’, conference: ‘Translations: Exchange of Ideas’ research conference, Cardiff University, UK.
• Rabourdin, C. (2012) ‘Look Left, Look Right: Reversal phenomenon, Language and Duality’, conference: ‘Contested Sites/Sights’ research conference, University of the Arts London (conference co-orgniser), UK.
• Rabourdin, C. (2011)‘Bilingual Space and Spatial Translation: Migrant’s cognitive experience from an architectural perspective’, conference: International Language Symposium, Dublin Institute of Technology & Royal Irish Academy, Ireland.