Samia Henni is a historian of the built, destroyed and imagined environments. She is the author of the multi-award-winning Architecture of Counterrevolution: The French Army in Northern Algeria (gta Verlag 2017, EN; Editions B42, 2019, FR), and Colonial Toxicity: Rehearsing French Radioactive Architecture and Landscape in the Sahara (If I Can’t Dance, Framer Framed, edition fink, 2023), and the editor of Deserts Are Not Empty (Columbia Books on Architecture and the City, 2022) and War Zones (gta Verlag, 2018). She is also the maker of exhibitions, such as Performing Colonial Toxicity (Framer Framed, If I Can’t Dance, Amsterdam, 2023–04), Discreet Violence: Architecture and the French War in Algeria (Zurich, Rotterdam, Berlin, Johannesburg, Paris, Prague, Ithaca, Philadelphia, Charlottesville, 2017–22), Archives: Secret-Défense? (ifa Gallery, SAVVY Contemporary, Berlin, 2021), and Housing Pharmacology (Manifesta 13, Marseille, 2020). Her teaching and research interests, as well as her exhibitions, are centered around the intersection of architecture with questions of colonialization, displacement, gender, resource extraction, and wars. Currently, she is an invited Visiting Professor at the Institute for the History and Theory of Architecture (gta), ETH Zurich, and the co-chair of the University Seminar “Beyond France” at Columbia University.
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Samia was an invited tutor (June–July 2023) at the first-ever Biennale College Architettura 2023 at the 18th International Architecture Exhibition at Venice Architecture Biennale, the inaugural Albert Hirschman Chair (2020–21) at the Institute of Advanced Study in Marseille, a Geddes Fellow (2021) at Edinburgh School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, a member (2020–23) of the Board of Directors of the Society of Architectural Historians, and a reviewer for the Cornell Society for the Humanities. Samia is currently a member of the Academic Board of the African Futures Institute, the International Advisory Board of Manazir Journal, the Editorial Boards of the Journal of Architecture, field: journal, the series Descamino for LetteraVentidue, Tamazgha Studies Journal, and the review panel for the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences.
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Samia received her PhD in the history and theory of architecture (with distinction, ETH Medal) from ETH Zurich and has taught at Princeton University, ETH Zurich, the University of Zurich, Geneva University of Art and Design, and Cornell University. She was also a Research Fellow at Curatorial/Knowledge PhD Program, Department of Visual Cultures, Goldsmiths, University of London. She received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in architecture from the Accademia di Architettura di Mendrisio, Università della Svizzera Italiana. She also studied at the former Berlage Institute in Rotterdam and at the École polytechnique d'architecture et d'urbanisme in Algiers.
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