Aug 16, 2021 – ATLANTA, GA
The School of Architecture is proud to announce the appointment of Elisa Dainese, Ph.D. as assistant professor.
“Elisa Dainese is passionate about teaching and mentoring,” said Julie Kim, Associate Chair for the School of Architecture. “While we had to wait for her to officially join us here in Atlanta, she has already been active in the life of the School of Architecture for the past year.”
“We are grateful for her active participation on the Equity, Justice, and Inclusion task force - and I am most grateful for her unflagging engagement with the graduate design studio I taught in Fall 2020. Elisa will no doubt have a lasting impact on our students and our community."
According to Scott Marble, William H. Harrison Chair for the School of Architecture, Dainese’s research and expertise will be an important asset to Georgia Tech. Her specializations in postwar architecture, urban design, and knowledge production “explore little known connections between Africa, Europe, and North America that expand the narratives around western architectural traditions.”
Dainese is currently completing a publication on the key role that sub-Saharan traditions played in the historical and conceptual refashioning of modern European and North American architecture from the 1940s to the 1970s. Her book projects also include the manuscript entitled “War Diaries: Design after the Destruction of Art and Architecture” and the edited collection “Women in Architecture: The African Exchange”, which is currently under development.
“I’m excited to join a program focused on design, creativity and critical engagement in a very dynamic environment,” Dainese said. “This is the perfect place for a historian and theorist with my architectural background.”
“I am inspired by my new urban setting and the fact that the School of Architecture is embedded in the heart of Atlanta, the unofficial capital of the ‘New South’ that rejected the slavery-based plantation system of the antebellum period and became a center of the civil rights movement in the 1950-60s. This is the ideal place to continue my research on postcolonial theories and decolonial practices and develop my investigations on concepts of race, gender and power in the design disciplines.”
Dainese earned her B.Arch, M.Arch in Architecture and Sustainability, and Ph.D. in Architecture from IUAV University of Venice. Her research has received grants, fellowships, and awards from Columbia University, the Bruno Zevi Foundation, the Canadian Centre for Architecture, the SSHRC Explore Grant Program at Dalhousie University, the Mellon Foundation funded Global History of Architecture Teaching Collaborative, the Graham Foundation, and the University of Pisa.