Giuseppina Forte
Ph.D. Student in Architecture, Concentration in City Planning
- Research Interests/Specializations
Spatial Politics; Inequality; Epistemologies of Architecture and Planning; History and Criticism of Architecture and Urbanism; Design Activism; Decolonizing the Curatorial; Racial Capitalism; Urban Peripheries; Brazil; Peripheral Subjectivities
- Degrees
- M.S. Architecture, University of California, Berkeley
- B.A. Architecture, La Sapienza University, Rome (Summa cum Laude) M.A. Equiv.
- NCARB Professional Certification in Architecture, U.S.A.
- Professional Degree in Architecture, Italian Ministry of Education and Research
- Biography
Giuseppina Forte is a Ph.D. candidate in Architecture at UC Berkeley, with a designated emphasis in Global Metropolitan Studies. Her research focuses on urban politics, inequality, and the spatialization of difference. She is currently investigating the urban peripheries as sites of radical politics, subjectivities and citizenship production, taking São Paulo, Brazil, as an extended case study. By challenging fixed profiles of poverty and subaltern agency, formal/informal and local/global divides, Giuseppina positions the peripheries of São Paulo as historically relevant sites of larger urban dynamics. As an architect, she has extensive experience in Italy, Burkina Faso, France, and California. She participated in the research and design for a center advocating against female genital mutilation (Burkina Faso) and supported the socio-economic rights of immigrants from Eastern Europe in construction sites (Paris). As a Fulbright-Hays Fellow, Giuseppina is currently visiting researcher at the University of São Paulo, in the Department of History of Architecture and Urbanism (FAU-USP) and affiliated with the Laboratory of Other Urbanisms.
- Courses Taught
Critical Architecture Practice. University of Architecture Escola da Cidade, São Paulo, Instructor.
Seminar in the Teaching of Architecture. UC Berkeley, Instructor.
Historical Survey of Architecture and Urbanism: Baroque to the Present. UC Berkeley (Margaret Crawford), GSI Lead.
Introduction to Design Theory and Criticism. UC Berkeley (Greig Crysler), GSI.
Social and Cultural Processes in Architecture and Urban Design. UC Berkeley (Galen Cranz), GSI.
Advanced Design Studio. Yale School of Architecture (Peggy Deamer), TA.
Design Studio III. University of Architecture Roma Tre, (Emilio Vendittelli), TA.
Architecture Design. University of Architecture La Sapienza of Rome (Emilio Vendittelli), TA.
Architecture Technology. European Institute of Design Rome (Giovanni Amici), TA.
- Awards + Recognition
- 2020 Global Urban Humanities Fellowship, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
- 2020 Towsend Conference & Lecture Grant, Doreen B. Townsend Center for Humanities
- 2019 Fulbright-Hays DDRA, Doctoral Dissertation Research Award
- 2019 Global Urban Humanities Publication Grant
- 2018-2019 John L. Simpson Memorial Research Fellowship in International and Comparative Studies, Institute of International Studies
- 2017-2018 Joan E. Draper Research Fellowship, Architectural History Research Endowment Fund
- 2017 Global Metropolitan Studies, Fieldwork Research Grant
- 2017 Foreign Language and Area Studies Summer Grant, U.S. Department of Education, Advanced Brazilian Portuguese
- 2016 Diversity Platforms Award, Arcus Endowment
- 2016 (re)thinking South Research Collective Award, Global Metropolitan Studies
- 2016 Foreign Language and Area Studies Summer Grant, U.S. Department of Education, Intermediate Brazilian Portuguese
- 2015 Instructional Teaching Improvement Grant, GSR
- 2015-2016/2019-2020 Doctoral Fellowship + Dissertation Completion Fellowship, UC Berkeley Graduate Division
- 2014-2015 Outstanding Graduate Student Instructor Award, sponsored by the GSI Teaching and Resource Center
- 2013-2014 Block Grant Fellowship, UC Berkeley Department of Architecture
- _____
- As part of the design team of the Centre for the Wellbeing of Women to stop Female Genital Mutilation, Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso:
- 2010 Aga Khan Award for Architecture, Finalist project
- 2010 XXII Architecture International Biennale of Venice, Exhibited project
- 2010 Zumtobel Award for Humanity in the Built Environment, Special mention
- 2009 Barbara Cappochin International Biennal Architecture Prize, Honourable Mention
- 2009 International Architecture Awards The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design and The European Center for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies, Winner
- 2008 World Architecture Festival, Health Category, Winner
- Selected Publications
Peer-reviewed Publications
Forte, Giuseppina. “The Neighborhood in the Morro,” LoSquaderno n. 53, Open-access journal, Fall 2019.Forte, Giuseppina. “Concrete Embeds: Assembling Modern Concretescapes in the Periphery of Mexico City.” In Mexico City: Materiality, Performance, and Power, edited by Greig Crysler and Maria Moreno Carranco, Trevesías Press (forthcoming).
Forte, Giuseppina. “Perform, Educate, Curate: the Cultural Politics transforming Urban Subjectivities in the Peripheries of São Paulo.” In New Urban Identities, edited by Silvia Ross and Giulio Giovannoni, Florence University Press (forthcoming).
Other Publications and Conference Proceedings/Presentations
Forte, Giuseppina. “The Path towards a more Open Space.” In Jardim Filhos da Terra: Reflexões de uma Experiência Construída, edited by Glauber Triana et alt, Escola da Cidade, December 2018.Forte, Giuseppina. “Building Humanitarian ‘Expertise’ in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso” Landscapes of Humanitarian Expertise, American Association of Geographers Conference, Boston, April 2017.
Forte, Giuseppina. “Towards a more Inclusive City? Architecture and Social Justice in São Paulo,” Cross-disciplinary Approaches to Urban Space, University of Florence, June 2016.
Forte, Giuseppina. “Subversive Spatial Practices at the Urban Fringes of São Paulo,” Traditional Dwellings and Settlements Working Paper Series, Vol. 266, 2015.
Invited Talks
"Relearning Architecture," Social and Cultural Processes in Architecture and Urban Design, UC Berkeley, October 2018.“Transformative Pedagogies in Architecture and Planning,” Seminar in Teaching of Architecture, UC Berkeley, January 2017.
“Global Archeology of Informality,” Understanding Informal Urbanization: between Different Narratives and Conflicting Meanings, Symposium, Keynote Speaker, Polytechnic of Milan, June 2016.
“Spatial Justice: Social Justice through Space,” Social and Cultural Basis of Design, UC Berkeley, December 2015.
“Architecture and the Postcolonial: the CBF in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso,” Yale School of Design, April 2011.
“From Architecture to Reality,” Polytechnic of Milan, December 2010.
Professional Services
Referee, Ardeth Journal.Broadly Experienced Foreign Architect (BEFA), National Council of Architecture Registration Boards (July 2016).