Mary Rzepczynski

Mary Rzepczynski is a current PhD student. Her work focuses on late imperial and early modern Chinese architecture, and in particular the relationship between architectural spaces and their design, construction, and depictions. Her past research has examined topics such as the Three Hills Five Gardens area of Beijing in the Qianlong period and early 20th century Chinese Baroque architecture in Harbin. She is also interested in the historic transmission of architectural practices and building technology across East Asia, as well as the preservation of wooden architecture.

Mary earned her M.A. in the History of Art with Distinction from the Courtauld Institute of Art, and her M.A. in Chinese History and Archaeology from Peking University as a Yenching Scholar. While in Beijing, Mary worked as a research assistant at UNESCO Beijing and attended the Inter-University Program for Chinese Language Studies at Tsinghua University. 

Interested in the architecture of border regions more broadly, Mary has also researched the decorative brickwork of late medieval churches in coastal Bulgaria between the Second Bulgarian and Byzantine Empires through a Fulbright Research Award in Archaeology. She has participated in workshops at the University of Pennsylvania’s Price Lab for Digital Humanities and at Southeast University (Nanjing). 

Mary’s research is informed by her training in architecture and work in architectural practice. She holds a Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Notre Dame and is currently completing her architectural license. She currently serves on the Society for Architectural Historians’ Heritage Conservation Committee.