Faraz Olfat

Faraz Olfat is a PhD student in History of Art, interested in the history of architecture, urbanism, design, and decorative arts. His scholarship is centred around architectural advancements in Europe in light of rising nationalism and socio-cultural transformations in the second half of the nineteenth century. Having completed his MA at the Courtauld Institute of Art in 2019, with a special focus on the histories of Modern Movement in art and material cultures, he studies the broader global dialogue of Modernism and its socio-political and cultural implications. In approaching these concepts, he examines issues of global exchange and the relationship between historicist eclecticism and constructed regional and national identities. He addresses such efforts in formulating a national style in the age of colonial empires and rapid industrial expansion in the late-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.