An Inter-Institutional Platform
for PhDs, PostDocs and ECRs in
Architectural History and Theory,
Landscape and the City
for PhDs, PostDocs and ECRs in
Architectural History and Theory,
Landscape and the City
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Regular Talks
︎︎︎Online Sessions Link︎︎︎
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︎︎︎Online Sessions Link︎︎︎
20 October 2026
10:00 AM EST / 4:00 PM CET
Architectures of Extraction.
ALEJANDRO CARRASCO HIDALGO
Universidad de Alcalá
Respondent: TBA
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Colonial priest baptising a Equatoguinean man on the bank of a river, 1946. Film still from La gran cosecha, Hermic Films. (Filmoteca Española Archives, Madrid).
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Soviet Women Architects in the Early 20th Century
IULIIA TUMDAG
Middle East Technical University
Respondent: TBA
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(Left image) Architect M. V. Fechner photographed on the lakeshore in Pereslavl-Zalessky,holding a camera and a cigarette, 1952. (Shchusev Museum of Architecture Archives, Fond ОФ-4829/224,page 1.)
(Right image) Before the opening of MOPRA Pavilion. members of the Presidium of theComintern. From left to right: Bogdanov (facing the camera)– representative of the CentralCommittee of MOPR; author- architect F. Ya. Belostotskaya; representative of Italy. (ShchusevMuseum of Architecture Archives, Fond ОФ-4829/15, page 10.)The architecture of the making of the author: Tracing the pedagogy of the "loge" in the Ecole des Beaux-Arts tradition.
10:00 AM EST / 4:00 PM CET
Architectures of Extraction.
The Construction of Territory in Francoist Spain: Subjects, Technologies and Imaginaries
ALEJANDRO CARRASCO HIDALGO
Universidad de Alcalá
Respondent: TBA
Colonial priest baptising a Equatoguinean man on the bank of a river, 1946. Film still from La gran cosecha, Hermic Films. (Filmoteca Española Archives, Madrid).
The Francoist regime that emerged in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War confronted a nation devastatedby conflict and marked by increasing international isolation. Consequently, from its inception, Francoism turned towards its own territory as a repository of exploitable resources—both material and human. This inward orientation, derived from the impossibility of pursuing a large-scale colonial project after the loss ofits American and Asian possessions in the aftermath of the Spanish–American War (1898), necessitated the instrumentalisation of domestic resources as both a productive and imaginative mechanism in the service ofnation-building.
Through the establishment of networks of production and extraction, new spatial configurations were generated that not only represented but actively intended to construct—both physically and symbolically—forms of life consonant with the prevailing ideological framework. This research analyses how the deployment of technical and productive infrastructures across the Spanish territory functioned as afoundational element in the modernisation of the extractive enterprise, simultaneously embodying andreinforcing the nationalist discourse. The construction of dams, rural settlements, and energy plants thus gave material expression to a particular ecology: a network of interrelations that articulated renewed (andoften reinterpreted) modes of coexistence between humans, resources, and territory.
By examining archival imagery and cartographic material in conjunction with the discursive apparatuses ofpropaganda (up-down) and cultural production (down-up) the project interprets the spaces of Francoist extraction as key sites in the (fictional) fabrication of the national social body. In this regard, thearchitectures of extraction and the urban scenes derived from them are understood as operative devices in the production of distinct subjectivities: the rural subject (internal colonisation), the colonial subject (colonisation in Africa), and the urban subject (energy colonisation).
Through the establishment of networks of production and extraction, new spatial configurations were generated that not only represented but actively intended to construct—both physically and symbolically—forms of life consonant with the prevailing ideological framework. This research analyses how the deployment of technical and productive infrastructures across the Spanish territory functioned as afoundational element in the modernisation of the extractive enterprise, simultaneously embodying andreinforcing the nationalist discourse. The construction of dams, rural settlements, and energy plants thus gave material expression to a particular ecology: a network of interrelations that articulated renewed (andoften reinterpreted) modes of coexistence between humans, resources, and territory.
By examining archival imagery and cartographic material in conjunction with the discursive apparatuses ofpropaganda (up-down) and cultural production (down-up) the project interprets the spaces of Francoist extraction as key sites in the (fictional) fabrication of the national social body. In this regard, thearchitectures of extraction and the urban scenes derived from them are understood as operative devices in the production of distinct subjectivities: the rural subject (internal colonisation), the colonial subject (colonisation in Africa), and the urban subject (energy colonisation).
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Soviet Women Architects in the Early 20th Century
IULIIA TUMDAG
Middle East Technical University
Respondent: TBA
(Left image) Architect M. V. Fechner photographed on the lakeshore in Pereslavl-Zalessky,holding a camera and a cigarette, 1952. (Shchusev Museum of Architecture Archives, Fond ОФ-4829/224,page 1.)
(Right image) Before the opening of MOPRA Pavilion. members of the Presidium of theComintern. From left to right: Bogdanov (facing the camera)– representative of the CentralCommittee of MOPR; author- architect F. Ya. Belostotskaya; representative of Italy. (ShchusevMuseum of Architecture Archives, Fond ОФ-4829/15, page 10.)The architecture of the making of the author: Tracing the pedagogy of the "loge" in the Ecole des Beaux-Arts tradition.
This study presents the first comprehensive, archive-based investigation into the lives and work of Soviet women architects throughout the twentieth century, with a particular focus on graduates of the 1920s. It examines how the radical social, political, and economic transformations following the Bolshevik Revolution reshaped the architectural profession and the roles of women within it. Inspired by archival discoveries—such as the jubilee albums of architects L. B. Neroslavskaya, T.A. Chizhikova, S. A. Kaufman, F. Ya. Belostotskaya, M. M. Gaken, M. M. Pevzner, M. V. Fechner, and E. Z. Cherikover, which contain biographical records, student works, and professional projects collected in Moscow and St. Petersburg—this research seeks to uncover the full scope of female contributions to Soviet architecture. The central question motivating this study is why there were no widely recognized Soviet women architects in the 1920s.
The study reconstructs the educational paths, professional trajectories, and design contributions of women who graduated from key Soviet institutions, including VKhUTEMAS, MIGI, MVTU, the Leningrad Higher Art and Technical Institute, and the Leningrad Institute of Civil Engineers (LIGI). It also identifies patterns of participation within influential architectural collectives, suc as ARU, ASNOVA, OSA, and various architectural unions active during the first and second Five-Year Plans, demonstrating how women played substantial roles in avant-garde architectura experiments, urban planning, and design competitions.
Employing an interdisciplinary approach informed by feminist scholarship, the study analyzes early 1920s gender reforms that enabled women to enter male-dominated professions and explores how Bolshevik ideological concepts sought to transform everyday life and social hierarchies. By recovering the histories of these pioneering women from largely unexplored archival sources, this research addresses a significant gap in Soviet architectural historiography and contributes to broader debates on gender, professional recognition, and the social dimensions of architecture in the socialist context.
The study reconstructs the educational paths, professional trajectories, and design contributions of women who graduated from key Soviet institutions, including VKhUTEMAS, MIGI, MVTU, the Leningrad Higher Art and Technical Institute, and the Leningrad Institute of Civil Engineers (LIGI). It also identifies patterns of participation within influential architectural collectives, suc as ARU, ASNOVA, OSA, and various architectural unions active during the first and second Five-Year Plans, demonstrating how women played substantial roles in avant-garde architectura experiments, urban planning, and design competitions.
Employing an interdisciplinary approach informed by feminist scholarship, the study analyzes early 1920s gender reforms that enabled women to enter male-dominated professions and explores how Bolshevik ideological concepts sought to transform everyday life and social hierarchies. By recovering the histories of these pioneering women from largely unexplored archival sources, this research addresses a significant gap in Soviet architectural historiography and contributes to broader debates on gender, professional recognition, and the social dimensions of architecture in the socialist context.
Forthcoming - TBA
10:00 AM EST / 4:00 PM CET
What’s Wrong with the Rural House?
On Realism and Myth in Giuseppe Pagano’s Photography
JOLANDA DEVALLE
École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL)
Respondent: Mireille Roddier, University of Michigan
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Giuseppe Pagano, Haystack in the Roman Agro, 1935.
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The Architecture of the Making of the Author
SEVGİ TÜRKKAN
Istanbul Technical University
Respondent: Mireille Roddier, University of Michigan
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The architecture of the making of the author: Tracing the pedagogy of the "loge" in the Ecole des Beaux-Arts tradition.
10:00 AM EST / 4:00 PM CET
What’s Wrong with the Rural House?
On Realism and Myth in Giuseppe Pagano’s Photography
JOLANDA DEVALLE
École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL)
Respondent: Mireille Roddier, University of Michigan
Giuseppe Pagano, Haystack in the Roman Agro, 1935.
This paper reconsiders Giuseppe Pagano’s Exhibition on Rural Architecture, presented at the VI Milan Triennale in 1936, a project built around an unprecedented photographic campaign of rural dwelling across Italy, much of it shot by Pagano himself. In architectural historiography, the exhibition has long been hailed as an “anthropological inquiry,” a paradigm shift away from stylistic canons and capital-A Architecture toward humble and overlooked every-day environments. After 1945, this reading became closely bound to Pagano’s own tragic trajectory—his break from fascism in 1943, participation in the Resistance, and his death in Mauthausen in 1945. Through a redemptive lens, postwar leftist scholarship interpreted the rural exhibition as a profoundly ethical endeavor: a realist search for architecture’s collective foundations, an antidote to fascist rhetoric, an early precursor to Neorealist sensibilities. Interpretations which collectively elevated Pagano and his work as figures of critical resistance, a narrative this paper seeks to revisit and complicate.
In light of today’s renewed yearnings for the so-called vernacular and rural imaginaries, this paper approaches Pagano’s exhibition through a different and seldom discussed lens: his 1939 photographic sequence and photobook Il Covo, depicting Mussolini’s editorial office—“the lair”—the mythologized birthplace of fascism. Viewed alongside Il Covo, Pagano’s celebrated “anthropological” inquiry reveals a more ambivalent aesthetic: a double movement in which realism and myth operate simultaneously. Through a close reading of photographs, his writings in Casabella, and the catalogue Architettura rurale italiana, the paper argues that Pagano’s mode of realism isolated and abstracted fragments of the real—neutralizing class conflicts and contingency—to produce archetypal, almost mythical forms and gestures. This reframing complicates his status as precursor to postwar Neorealism and situates Pagano’s visual practice within recent philosophical reflections on fascism’s capacity to transform “reality” through myth.
In light of today’s renewed yearnings for the so-called vernacular and rural imaginaries, this paper approaches Pagano’s exhibition through a different and seldom discussed lens: his 1939 photographic sequence and photobook Il Covo, depicting Mussolini’s editorial office—“the lair”—the mythologized birthplace of fascism. Viewed alongside Il Covo, Pagano’s celebrated “anthropological” inquiry reveals a more ambivalent aesthetic: a double movement in which realism and myth operate simultaneously. Through a close reading of photographs, his writings in Casabella, and the catalogue Architettura rurale italiana, the paper argues that Pagano’s mode of realism isolated and abstracted fragments of the real—neutralizing class conflicts and contingency—to produce archetypal, almost mythical forms and gestures. This reframing complicates his status as precursor to postwar Neorealism and situates Pagano’s visual practice within recent philosophical reflections on fascism’s capacity to transform “reality” through myth.
***
The Architecture of the Making of the Author
SEVGİ TÜRKKAN
Istanbul Technical University
Respondent: Mireille Roddier, University of Michigan
The architecture of the making of the author: Tracing the pedagogy of the "loge" in the Ecole des Beaux-Arts tradition.
The late 20th century saw the intensification of attempts that expose the author as a theoretical, traditional and disciplinary construct in its complex socio-cultural entanglements. This Post-doctoral research, additionally, aims to take on a spatial perspective in the construction of the author-figure, focusing on one of the most formative chapters in the history of architectural education with continuing reverberations today.
When the seminal École des Beaux-Arts was re-established in its new complex on Rue Bonaparte in 1820, “Bâtiments des Loges” (The-Loges-Building) was the first building to be completed and used in 1824. “Loges” can be described as individual cubicles aligned on a corridor, divided by rigid walls, strictly regulated and kept under probation by guardians in order to isolate students physically and socially from the outside world and each other during the periods of architectural competitions (ranging from 2 hours to 3 months), including the prestigious Prix de Rome. Inherited from Academie Royal D’Architecture, loges were central to the pedagogy and curriculum of the École (Levine, Middleton, 1984). To counter the anonymity in the ateliers, loges assured competitors an uninterrupted space, allowing them to manifest their personal skills with a guarantee of claiming the credits in person. Although lesser published, and was abandoned after the École’s dissemination in 1968, this tiny spatio-pedagogic unit has been profound in maintaining the École des Beaux-Arts system and culture, which served as the prevalent model for institutionalized architectural education 19th century onwards.
A brief account of this lasting spatio-pedagogic tradition attempts to pin down the often-mystified production of the author in spatial lieu, revealing the socio-spatial mechanisms enabled and triggered by its architecture: the conception of creativity and isolation, the rituals of competition and surveillance, the stories of accomplishments and misbehavior.
Through a selection of drawings, postcards, administrative documents and letters from 19th and 20th century archive materials, the study will display and discuss a brief account of the “loges” as a pedagogic instrument, a cultural incubator and an authorship inscribing mechanism.
When the seminal École des Beaux-Arts was re-established in its new complex on Rue Bonaparte in 1820, “Bâtiments des Loges” (The-Loges-Building) was the first building to be completed and used in 1824. “Loges” can be described as individual cubicles aligned on a corridor, divided by rigid walls, strictly regulated and kept under probation by guardians in order to isolate students physically and socially from the outside world and each other during the periods of architectural competitions (ranging from 2 hours to 3 months), including the prestigious Prix de Rome. Inherited from Academie Royal D’Architecture, loges were central to the pedagogy and curriculum of the École (Levine, Middleton, 1984). To counter the anonymity in the ateliers, loges assured competitors an uninterrupted space, allowing them to manifest their personal skills with a guarantee of claiming the credits in person. Although lesser published, and was abandoned after the École’s dissemination in 1968, this tiny spatio-pedagogic unit has been profound in maintaining the École des Beaux-Arts system and culture, which served as the prevalent model for institutionalized architectural education 19th century onwards.
A brief account of this lasting spatio-pedagogic tradition attempts to pin down the often-mystified production of the author in spatial lieu, revealing the socio-spatial mechanisms enabled and triggered by its architecture: the conception of creativity and isolation, the rituals of competition and surveillance, the stories of accomplishments and misbehavior.
Through a selection of drawings, postcards, administrative documents and letters from 19th and 20th century archive materials, the study will display and discuss a brief account of the “loges” as a pedagogic instrument, a cultural incubator and an authorship inscribing mechanism.