Â鶹AV

Home

Samia Henni

Academic title(s): 

BArch, MArch (USI-AAM), PhD (ETH Zurich)

Samia Henni
Contact Information
Email address: 
samia.henni [at] mcgill.ca
Degree(s): 

B. Arch., M.Arch. (USI-AAM), Ph.D. in History and Theory of Architecture (ETH Zurich)

Link(s): 
Research areas: 
Architectural history and theory
Colonial histories, postcolonial, and anticolonial theories
Conflicts, revolutions, counterrevolutions, and wars
Extractivim and nuclear age
Feminist, gender, and queer studies
Biography: 

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, 2022, EN; Editions B42, 2019, FR), which received the 2020 Spiro Kostof Book Award from the Society of Architectural Historians, and Colonial Toxicity: Rehearsing French Radioactive Architecture and Landscape in the Sahara (If I Can’t Dance, Framer Framed, edition fink, 2024), 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; gta Exhibitions, Zurich; The Mosaic Rooms, London, 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).

She received her Ph.D. 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. 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 an invited Visiting Professor (2023–24) at the Institute for the History and Theory of Architecture (gta), ETH Zurich. Currently she is the co-chair of the University Seminar “Beyond France” at Columbia University, and a member of the Editorial Boards of the Journal of Architecture; field: journal; Descamino; Manazir; Tamazgha Studies Journal, and of the Academic Board of the African Futures Institute. In the fall of 2024, Samia joined the faculty of Â鶹AV’s Peter Guo-hua Fu School of Architecture

Back to top