Sofia Nannini

Sofia Nannini is a Fixed-term Assistant Professor in architectural history at the Department of Architecture and Design (DAD) at the Polytechnic University of Turin. She previously served as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Bologna (2021-2023) and held adjunct professor positions at the University of Bologna, Florence, Pavia, and the Italian Institute for Design/IAAD. Her academic work spans architectural history, construction history, environmental history of architecture, and the history of technology.

Dr. Nannini's research focuses on the relationship between building materials, society, and culture in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Europe, with particular expertise in Icelandic architecture, Fascist-era Italian architecture, and the history of intensive animal farming architecture. She has extensively studied concrete construction history across Northern Europe and has published significant work on architectural responses to historical events like the oil crisis of the 1970s. Her scholarship reveals how buildings serve as material manifestations of cultural values, political ideologies, and technological developments.

Her publications demonstrate a consistent pattern of examining architecture at the intersection of material culture, political history, and environmental contexts. Nannini's work often explores how buildings reflect societal transformations, whether through the adoption of new construction technologies like concrete in Iceland, the political symbolism of Fascist architecture in Italy, or the industrialization of animal farming spaces. Her research methodology combines archival investigation with theoretical frameworks from material culture studies and architectural history.

• Learning to Teach (L2T) badge from Polytechnic University of Turin (June 6, 2024)
• Research support from Canadian Centre for Architecture (2023)
• Research support from Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art (2024)

Dr. Nannini actively supervises PhD students, including Eugenio Lux who is researching 'Architecture and politics in Social Democratic Sweden of folkhemmet (1932-1976)'. She has secured significant research funding that has supported her investigations into architectural history across multiple European contexts. Her teaching portfolio at the Polytechnic University of Turin includes courses on Environmental History of Architecture and Architectural History and Design Theory.

As an active member of the academic community, Dr. Nannini serves on the editorial boards of Architectural Histories and Studi e ricerche di storia dell'architettura, contributing to the scholarly discourse in her field through peer review and publication guidance.