Razieh Ghorbani
Ph.D. Student - Architecture
- Research Interests/Specializations
The everyday politics of architecture and construction in the Middle East; urban anthropology; architectural globalization and its rhetoric; postcolonial and alternative modernities
- Degrees
- M.Arch, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
- M.S. in Architecture, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
- Biography
Razieh Ghorbani is a PhD candidate in the Department of Architecture, specializing in history and theory of architecture. She earned her MArch and MS degrees from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Her research explores the everyday politics of architecture and construction in the Middle East, focusing on how architects and other building players recalibrate the boundaries of their practice under specific economic and political situations. Through both archival and ethnographic analysis, she studies the social life of buildings as artifacts, spaces, words, and dreams.
- Courses Taught
2014, 2015, 2016 - ARCH 170A, An Historical Survey of Architecture and Urbanism, UC Berkeley (GSI for Andrew Shanken)
2015 - ARCH 170B, An Historical Survey of Architecture and Urbanism, UC Berkeley (GSI for Dora Epstein)
- Awards + Recognition
- The Carter Manny Award for doctoral dissertation research, the Graham Foundation, 2017
- Andrew Mellon Research Grant, Center for Middle Eastern Studies, UC Berkeley, 2017
- Outstanding Graduate Student Instructor Award, UC Berkeley, 2017
- Al-Falah Fellowship in Islamic Studies, Center for Middle Eastern Studies, UC Berkeley, 2016
- Afaf Kanafani Best Paper Award, Center for Middle Eastern Studies, UC Berkeley, 2016
- Master of Architecture Best Thesis Award, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 2012
- Center for the Education of Women Research Grant, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 2012
- Selected Publications
Resurrecting Tradition, Rewriting Modernity: Experiments in Contemporary Iranian Architecture under Economic Recession; Journal of Traditional Dwellings and Settlements Review, Volume 30, Number 2, Spring 2019, pp. 61-76