Eduard Franz Sekler

Professor Eduard Frank Sekler is the Osgood Hooker Professor of Visual Art Emeritus and Professor of Architecture Emeritus from Harvard University. His research deals with the history and theory of 20th century architecture and with historic preservation as well as with issues of architectural education. Sekler's field work has been focussed on the preservation of historic buildings and urban spaces in Vienna, Austria, and in the Kathmandu Valley, Nepal. He has written books and essays on Josef Hoffmann, Adolf Loos, and Le Corbusier and published papers about projects and problems in historic conservation. Sek­ler came to Har­vard in 1960, at the in­vi­ta­tion of Joseph Lluis Sert, later co-founding (along with Albert Szabo) the university's Vi­sual and En­vi­ron­men­tal Stud­ies de­part­ment in 1968. Outside of his ex­plicit pro­fes­so­r­ial du­ties, Sek­ler has been ac­tive in ef­forts to pre­serve the cul­tural and ar­chi­tec­tural her­itage of Nepal's Kathmandu Valley. After first vis­it­ing in 1962, he made mul­ti­ple re­turn trips to the val­ley in as­so­ci­a­tion with UNESCO and led the pro­duc­tion of plans to safe­guard the valley's her­itage from de­vel­op­ment and pop­u­la­tion pres­sures. In 1990 he founded the Kathmandu Val­ley Preser­va­tion Trust (KVPT), and now serves as an hon­orary mem­ber of its board of di­rec­tors.