Yimei Zhang holds a Bachelor of Economics from Beijing Foreign Studies University, and dual Masters’ degrees in City Planning and Historic Preservation from the University of Pennsylvania. Before joining the TUM Professorship of Recent Building Heritage Conservation, Prof. Andreas Putz, she worked as a heritage conservation planner in China for 6 years. Her projects focus on World Heritage nomination, management of rural settlements, and the conservation of modern heritage. Jingmai Tea Forests, the Ancient Tea-Horse Road, Kulangsu International Settlement, Yongtai Fortified Manors, and Mawei Arsenal are among some of her major projects. She believes that heritage can be a powerful tool to regenerate urban neighborhoods, empower local communities, and make better, livable places.
As visiting scholar at TUM, Yimei Zhang will spend her fellowship year researching the conservation of post-war large-scale housing complexes in Germany. Taking these settlements as a comparative case, her studies focus on current conservation techniques, as well as on the process of social and cultural construction of heritage. Ultimately, the results will help to discuss the applicability of existing conservation paradigms on large-scale housing complexes and provide best practice examples.
Yimei Zhang hopes that her research would contribute to the conservation of the built environment of our recent past, and promote bilateral conversation on heritage between China and Germany.
Further information: