Gordana Fontana-Giusti is an architect, architectural theoretician and urban designer

She has been the Assistant Director of Histories and Theories Programme at the AA Graduate School and was involved in setting up and teaching at the London Consortium Doctoral Programme - comprising the AA, Tate, Birkbeck College, British Film Institute and the ICA.

Fontana-Giusti was the Director of Urban Design at Central Saint Martins Innovation Centre, University of the Arts, London, the coordinator of Agora Cities for People - The FP5 European Commission sponsored project in urban research and design.

She has published articles in AA-Files and ARQ and is the author of the Complete Works of Zaha Hadid (with Patrik Schumacher) 2004, Thames and Hudson.

Fontana- Giusti teaches both theory and design on undergraduate and graduate level. She has lectured widely in the UK and abroad including international conferences in UNESCO Paris (Water and Civilisation) and at Walk 21 Switzerland.

Currently, she is the Director of CREAte (Centre for Research in European Architecture). She chairs the Kent University think-tank on regeneration and is the Professor of Regional Regeneration and the Director of Research at the School of Architecture.

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Publications include:

Published Books:

• Scale: Imagination, Perception and Practice in Architecture by Gerald Adler, Timothy Brittain-Catlin and Gordana Fontana-Giusti eds (2012) Abingdon: Routledge, ISBN: 978-0-415-68711-9 
• Complete Works of Zaha Hadid, 4 volumes*, Thames and Hudson, Rizzoli Author and Editor (with Patrik Schumacher) major publication - the opus includes architecture, paintings, drawings, furniture design etc. November 2004. Published in English, translated into German and Spanish, distribution worldwide

Book Chapters, Essays and Articles:

• Walling and the city: the effects of walls and walling within the city space. The Journal of Architecture. Vol.16, issue 3, 2011, pp 309-345. DOI: 10.1080/13602365.2011.570056.

   

• ‘The urban language of early Constantinople’: the changing roles of the arts and architecture in the formation of the new capital and the new consciousness’,(2012) in Stephanie L. Hathaway and David W. Kim (eds), Intercultural transmission in the medieval Mediterranean, London: Continuum, pp 164-202. ISBN: 978-1-441139-0-85.
• ‘The role of small-scale images by Wenceslaus Hollar: the rebuilding of London in the late seventeenth century’, in Gerald Adler, Timothy Brittain-Catlin and Gordana Fontana-Giusti (eds), Scale: imagination, perception and practice in architecture, AHRA Critiques series vol 7, Abingdon: Routledge. 2012, pp 182-193. ISBN: 978-0-415-68711-9, pp 21-33. 
• 'Walling and the city: the effects of walls and walling within the city space' The Journal of Architecture, RIBA and Routledge, Vol 16, No3 (2011) pp309-345"Ignored by critics". Architectural Research Quarterly, 14, pp 190-191 doi:10.1017/S135913551000093X (2010)
• Eric Mumford, Defining Urban Design. CIAM Architects and the Formation of a Discipline, 1937-69 article, book review in Urban History, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010, no. 37 (1), pp. 196-198.
• "Avant-Garde Film and Its Role in Understanding the Space of the City", chapter in the book City in Film, University of Liverpool (2009)
• "Urban strolling as the measure of Quality", ARQ Architecture Research Quarterly, Issue on Quality edited by Richard Weston, Cambridge University Press 2007*
• "Water, Cities and Signification" article in the Book of proceedings, 1st symposium on waterfronts in the Danube Region, Novi Sad* (2006)
• "Mapping the Experience of the Walker, a Spatio-Dynamic Method for Designing a Responsive Environment for the 21st Century Pedestrian Culture" - Walk 21 website publication* (2005)
• "Reflections on the Notion of Surface in Contemporary Architecture" article in Architettura Intersezioni, Issue No8, in Italian and English, Publication Instituto Universitario di Architettura, Venice* (2001)
• "The Cutting Surface: on Perspective as a Section, Its relationship to Writing, and Its Role in Understanding Space" AA-Files, Architectural Association, London, Spring issue No40. (2000)
• Dictionary of Twentieth Century Architecture, 6 volumes, Allemandi Turin, Area co-ordinator, and author of over twenty entries on different architects. Edited by Prof. Carlo Olmo In Italian and English. (2000)
• "On the Sublime" essay for the book Verso il sublime by Francesco Silbano. Allemandi. Turin (1998)
• AA- News "Fragments of Utopia" article on the book and the exhibition by David Wild. AA Publications (1998)
• Translation of L. B. Albertis De commodis litterarum atque incommodis into English (with R. Fontana Giusti) part of PhD - University of London. (1997)
• 'The Tectonic Maze', AA-Files No.32 Architectural Association London - a critical review of Kenneth Frampton's book Studies in Tectonic Culture: The Poetics of Construction in Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Architecture* (1996)
• EAG Enciclopedia dell'Architettura, Garzanti, Turin entry on Joze Plecnik. (1996)

 

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Research interests:

• PhD entitled "The Rhetoric of Surfaces and Walls in LB Alberti's De re aedificatoria, De pictura and De commodis atque incommodis litterarum", was on the subject of Renaissance architectural and urban theory as well as on the theory of perspective, arts and letters and how they came to influence western architectural historiography.
• This has been followed by the interest in regeneration and urban design, in particular sustainable cities (psychological and social sustainability)
• Theatre and public spaces of cities
• Water and cities
• Representation and architecture, including the history of architectural drawings etc

Research affiliations

• AHRA representative, Kent School of Architecture, University of Kent
• Member of KIASH Steering Committee
• Member of SILBA Societe Leon Battista Alberti, Paris
• AA London
• Visiting Professor - PhD in Architecture - Technical University, Novi Sad

Current project include:

• Designing Cities for People - A monograph in urban design
• The role of theatre drama in urban design
• The relationship of water and cities

Conferences

• 2009 September: Politics of Space, CAPPE Conference, University of Brighton. Paper: 'The Role of Walls in the Politics of City Space' http://www.brighton.ac.uk/CAPPE/Confevents/page8/files/page8_4.pdf
• 2009 May: Annual Renaissance Colloquium, Canterbury Cathedral Library and Canterbury Christ Church University. Paper: 'On the Early Writings of Leon Battista Alberti' http://www.canterbury.ac.uk/arts-humanities/english-language-studies/AnnualRenaissance.aspx.
• 2008 November:  Agency - AHRA Architectural Humanities Research Association Annual Conference University of Sheffield Paper: Registering the Urban Drama - an Agency of Urban Design
• 2008 September: Cultural Memory: Forgetting to Remember / Remembering to Forget, organised by KIASH -Kent Institute for Advanced Studies in Humanities University of Kent Paper: Designing Cities for Memory http://www.kent.ac.uk/kiash/events/culturalmemory/index.html
• 2008 March: City in Film International Conference Liverpools Urban Landscape and the Moving Image University of Liverpool, Liverpool the European Capital of Culture Paper: Avant-Garde Film and Its Role in Understanding the Space of the City http://www.liv.ac.uk/lsa/cityinfilm/conf2008.html
• 2008 February: London College of Communication Presentation for the MA students in Film and Photography Symposium on the Regeneration of Elephant and Castle Paper: Photography and Regeneration
• 2007 July: Quality Conference International conference on quality in architecture University of Cardiff Paper: Urban Strolling as the Measure of Quality
• 2007 February: Cityscape 2007 London, Earls Court Interdisciplinary Conference on Cityscape Paper: The Roles of the Arts in Urban Development
• 2007 June: Urban Design - Context Analysis - Elephant and Castle Presentation to MA students in Photography
• 2006 March: 1st Symposium on Waterfronts in the Danube Region. Novi Sad, Serbia and Montenegro Paper: Cities, Water and Signification
• 2005 December: 'Water and Civilization' IWHA Conference UNESCO Paris Paper: Cities, Water and Identity http://iwha.polaire.net/cgi-bin/2005/papers.cgi?detail=305-korolija_fontana_giusti&order=name
• 2005 September: Walk 21 International Conference, Zurich Paper: Mapping the Experience of the Walker: a Spatio-Dynamic Method of Designing a Responsive Environment for the 21 Century . Proceedings on: http://www.walk21.com/the_board/board_papers.asp?Board=6&p=10
• 2005 June: Congress CATH 2005 University of Leeds The Ethics and Politics of Virtuality and Indexicality Paper: The status of the categories of the virtual and the real in contemporary architecture and urban design http://www.leeds.ac.uk/cath/congress/2005/programme/abs/83.shtml
• 2005 July: UIA World Congress of Architects Istanbul Paper: Public Spaces for the City in the 21century published in the Congress proceedings
• 2004 October: International CUMULUS Conference in Utrecht Academy of Arts Paper: Urban Choreography within Agora Project

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As module convenor:

• AR802            Cultural Context - a module comprising contemporary architectural theories,                       histories, and criticism. Lecture-based, with follow-up seminars and tutorials                       leading to dissertation

As tutor:

• AR519             Dissertation - written work tutor
• AR532             Landscape 2 - written work tutor and cultural context lecturer
• AR807             Mayor Design Project - design and theory tutor

As reviewer/Examiner:

• Crit panels throughout School (BA and M Arch programmes)

Postgraduate

MPhil and PhD Research Seminars – Convenor of weekly research seminars involving reading of theoretical texts, research methodology discussions and presentations by candidates

PhD Supervision

• Architecture and the Sacred - Lindy Weston
• On Architectural Drawings and Mountaineering - Anja Nydal
• Evaluation and the measurement of energy performance - Keith Bothwell

 

Post-PhD Research supervision:

On Psycho-Social Quality of Dwelling and its Improvements within Urban Context - Beria Bayizitlioglu

As a PhD examiner:

• A PhD Examiner for European PHD degree Politecnico, Turin, Italy

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