Louise Vanhee
Louise Vanhee (°1995) graduated in 2020 with a Master of Science in Engineering: Architecture (Urban Design and Architecture) from Ghent University, where her master thesis explored contemporary Belgian architectural projects engaging with ruins and 'ruinosity'. During her studies, she occasionally assisted at the Auction House of Carlo Bonte in Bruges, gaining early experience with the cataloguing and valuation of objects.
Afterwards she joined Groningen University to follow a research master in Arts, Media & Literary Studies where she was also a teaching and research assistant of various staff members of the Department of History of Art, Architecture and Landscape. During this time, she interned at Land Art Contemporary, working on a valuation report of Robert Smithson’s Broken Circle / Spiral Hill (1971, Emmen).
Since 2021, Louise has been a doctoral student and teaching assistant at Ghent University’s Department of Architecture and Urban Planning. Her research draws on material reuse, critical heritage studies, and anthropology to examine how architectural fragments were valued, commodified, and circulated in the early 20th century. Through case studies spanning from (local) public institutions to (international) private collectors, she traces the trajectories of individual fragments, using object biographies and archival research to analyze how their (after)lives and potential (re-)use were shaped.
She recently received a PhD exchange grant to spend three months (Fall 2025) at UC Berkeley within the Strategic Institutional Partnership between Ghent University and UC Berkeley. There, she will focus on William Randolph Hearst’s collecting practice of architectural fragments and how this influenced the design process of architect Julia Morgan.
She also assists in courses on architectural design, history, and theory and supervises master theses in these topics.
- Contact information and research profile of Louise Vanhee
- Theory and History of Architecture research group
![Architectural fragments owned by W.R. Hearst. Left: "an important [Moorish XIV century] wooden ceiling". Right: "a very rare gothic doorway"](https://www.ugent.be/ea/img/architectuur/onderzoeksprojecten/commodificatie-en-waarderingsprocessen-van-architectuurfragmenten/architectural-fragments-owned-by-w-r-hearst-left-an-important-moorish-xiv-century-wooden-ceiling-right-a-very-rare-gothic-doorway/@@images/6da7e32d-c463-48d0-b73c-f87a2ce6fd7c.jpeg "Architectural fragments owned by W.R. Hearst. Left: \"an important [Moorish XIV century] wooden ceiling\". Right: \"a very rare gothic doorway\"")
