Josephine Kane

Josephine Kane is a design historian and lecturer at the Royal College of Art (RCA), School of Arts & Humanities. She specializes in the relationship between design and urban lived experiences from the 19th century to the present. Her research focuses on the built environment, including amusement parks, modernist cinemas, and contemporary urban innovations like the Thames as a non-human agent of design change. She co-chairs the Sites & Situations Research Cluster, exploring art and design in public spaces through interdisciplinary collaboration. A former British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow (2009–15), she holds a PhD in Architecture from UCL and has authored influential works like The Architecture of Pleasure (2013). She currently supervises doctoral students in History of Design and leads projects such as the Wellcome Trust’s Vertigo in the City (2018).

• Education: MA in Design History; PhD in Architecture (UCL)
• Key Roles: British Academy Fellow (2009–15); Trustee/Secretary, Design History Society (2017–20)

Her research integrates object-led methodologies to disrupt narratives on urban design, emphasizing socially engaged practice and interdisciplinary collaboration. Current projects include a design history of the Thames and a study of boats as transformative social spaces.