Dr Alex Seo

Alex Seo is a Lecturer in Architectural History, Theory, and Design at the Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning, and an Affiliated Researcher at the Centre for Urban Conflicts Research at the University of Cambridge. He holds a BAS and MArch with Honours from the University of Auckland and a PhD from the University of Cambridge. Prior to joining the Melbourne School of Design, Alex was a Lecturer in the School of Architecture at the University of Technology Sydney, a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Architecture at the National University of Singapore, and a visiting Research Fellow at GSD Harvard and Seoul National University. From 2014 to 2020, Alex was a Cambridge Commonwealth, European & International Trust Scholar.

Alex’s training is in Architectural practice and research with a specialist focus on the architecture of Asia-Pacific; more specifically to the two Koreas. He is particularly interested in the processes through which human environments are formed and reshaped in hostile conflicts. His current research explores the theme of ‘militarized modernity’ examining the dynamic cultural, social and political relations between the built environment and the everyday life. This includes ongoing book projects, one on the role of frontier villages in shaping populations and territories at the inter-Korean border, and the other that deal with the way that elusive, persistent forms of warfare are embedded in architecture and built environments. His PhD dissertation 'Frontier Villages: Human Habitation in the Korean Borderlands after the Korean War' received RIBA President’s Awards for Research and was shortlisted for the ICAS Dissertation Prize.

Alex is a section-editor for the book project 'The Palgrave Encylopedia of Cultural Heritage and Conflict.' Recently, he served as a co-chair for the EAHN Athens 2024 session 'Wars outside and wars inside.'

Alex teaches architectural history and design in the faculty across both the postgraduate and undergraduate programmes.

Featured projects

• Global Korea Research Hub
• Centre for Urban Conflicts Research
• The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Cultural Heritage and Conflict
• State propaganda and human habitation tango at Korean DMZ