Olaf Bartels is an author, editor, curator, and presenter. He studied architecture at the University of Fine Arts Hamburg and has published numerous books, magazines, and research on both contemporary and historic architecture, as well as urban development, in Germany and Turkey. He has worked as a university lecturer in Berlin, Braunschweig, Hamburg, Istanbul, and Ankara, and is currently professor of architectural history and theory at the International University of Applied Sciences (IU) in Hamburg and teaches at HafenCity University in Hamburg. In addition to this, he is a member of the Deutsche Akademie für Städtebau und Landesplanung (DASL), an association of experts in the field.