Guided by a notion of architecture as a cultural, social endeavor, Goehner’s areas of interest and research, professional as well as in the studio, are wide ranging. They include:
- Housing as an architectural, social, and political issue
- The institution of the museum as architecture, as well as cultural and political practice, and its significance as a project within the production of architecture
- The city as a cultural and political artifact and the effects created by the information and telecommunication revolution on the urban condition, such as destabilization of the traditional dichotomy between city and landscape; transformation of the public sphere and urban public space; accelerated and decelerated urbanization and its effect on new emerging megalopolises, respectively old industrial urban areas.
A registered architect in Germany, Goehner studied and worked with Egon Eierman (Universität Karlsruhe), George Candilis (École Nationale Superieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris) and O.M.Ungers (Cornell University). He has been associate director of the Department of Comprehensive Urban Development in Karlsruhe. He has won numerous awards and honors, including
- A DAAD Fellowship
- A citation by the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture
- The outstanding educator award by the president, Cornell University
- Faculty Fellow of the Society for the Humanities, Cornell University
- Invitee to the Cornell University-wide interdisciplinary Mellon Seminar about visual studies
- Numerous prizes in international professional urban design and museum design competitions, including participation in the International Building Exhibition in Berlin with a built project for an urban villa
- He recently got invited to participate and lecture in conferences and symposia in Mumbai and Berlin.
- His entry in the international architectural design competition for the Great Egyptian Museum in Cairo has been chosen for publication.
Goehner served as graduate faculty representative (GFR) and director of graduate studies(DGS). During his teaching in the post-professional graduate program he conducted urban design studios about Berlin, New York, Vienna, Detroit, and Mumbai. He taught and directed special foreign Cornell Summer Programs in Europe, South America, North Africa, South-East Asia, and China. He has taught seminars dealing with a wide range of topics:
- Stage Set Design-Urban Design: K.F.Schinkel’s Transformation of Berlin
- Contextualism
- Rethinking the Urban
- Museum in Distress – Cultural Practices in and around the Museum
- Museum as Spectacle: The Changing Landscape of Museums in Europe
- Rambling City
- After the City – From Metropolis to Electropolis
- Post-Modern Critical Texts
Goehner presently teaches a third-year undergraduate design studio and conducts a graduate proseminar in thesis design research.
