Pol Fité Matamoros

PhD Candidate, Landscape Architecture & Environmental Planning

SPECIALIZATIONS

Architectural, landscape, and urban history and theory; fascist studies; racial geographies; visual culture; postcolonial studies; and the history of regime-building.

EDUCATION

Master in Design Studies in Urbanism, Landscape, and Ecology with Distinction, Harvard University Graduate School of Design

Graduate Research Master in Urbanism, Escola Tècnica Superior d’Arquitectura de Barcelona (ETSAB), Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC)

Architecture degree (professional degree equivalent to a BArch + MArch), Escola Tècnica Superior d’Arquitectura de Barcelona (ETSAB), Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC)

BIOGRAPHY

Pol Fite Matamoros is an architect and urbanist from Barcelona and PhD candidate in Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning at the University of California, Berkeley. His most recent research and teaching appointments include Research Associate at the Critical Landscapes Lab, Harvard University Graduate School of Design (GSD), for the project "Atlas for a City-Region: Imagining the Post-Brexit Landscapes of the Irish Northwest," and instructor of the core courses "Cities and Sites" and "Urban Design Fundamentals Studio" at the University of California, Berkeley, College of Environmental Design.

Through the case of Spain at the turn of the 20th century, Fité Matamoros’ research examines the broader connections between visual culture, the spatial production of social and racial difference, and the spatial imperatives of regime-building. It dissects how certain political discourses, such as Spanish fascism, become conceivable, gain traction, and are put into action through seemingly ordinary images, spatial plans, and designs, advancing our understanding of fascist movements amid the contemporary rise of global ethnonationalisms.

COURSES TAUGHT

Urban Design Fundamentals Studio (ENVDES201). Lead Instructor, UC Berkeley CED

Cities and Sites (ED5), Co-Instructor with Professors Greg Castillo (2023) and Walter Hood (2024), UC Berkeley CED

Advanced Urban Design Studio (ENVDES202), Assistant Instructor with Mona Lovgreen and Amit Price Patel, DIALOG, UC Berkeley CED

Urban Design Fundamentals Studio (ENVDES201). Assistant Instructor with Professor Scott Elder, UC Berkeley CED

Cities and Sites (ED5), Module II: Landscapes. Co-instructor with Professor Greg Castillo, UC Berkeley CED

"Historical Survey of Architecture and Urbanism, 1500-present" (ARCH170B). Graduate Student Instructor with Professor Margaret Crawford, UC Berkeley CED

Core Urban Design Studio I with Professor Scott Elder, UC Berkeley CED. Assistant Instructor with Professor Scott Elder, UC Berkeley CED

"Social and Psychological Factors in Open Space Design" (LDARCH 140). Graduate Student Instructor with Professor Anna Brand, UC Berkeley CED

Landscape Architecture option studio: "Field Work: Brexit, Borders, and Imagining a New City-Region for the Irish Northwest." Teaching Fellow and Research Associate with Professors Niall Kirkwood and Gareth Doherty, Harvard University GSD, Spring 2019

Anthropology seminar: "Design Anthropology: Objects, Landscapes, Cities." Teaching Fellow and Research Associate with Professor Gareth Doherty, Harvard University GSD & Anthropology Department, Spring 2019

Architecture seminar: "The Texts of the Modern: in Search of a New Narrative." Teaching Assistant with Professor Rafael Moneo, Harvard University GSD, Spring 2018

Urban Planning seminar: "Energetics of Urbanization." Teaching Assistant with Professors Neil Brenner and Kiel Moe, Harvard University GSD, Spring 2018

Urban Planning lecture course: "History and Theory of Urban Interventions." Teaching Assistant with Professor Neil Brenner, Harvard University GSD, Fall 2017

Core Urban Design Studio IV "Housing." Teaching Fellow with Professor Francesc Peremiquel, ETSAB, UPC, Spring 2015

Core Final Project/Thesis Studio in Architecture and Urban Design "City and Infrastructure." Teaching Assistant with Professor Elías Torres, ETSAB, UPC, Fall 2013 and Spring 2014

Core Architecture Design Studios XIX and XX "City and Infrastructure." Teaching Fellow with Professors Carles Muro, Carme Ribas and Ton Salvadó, ETSAB, UPC, Fall 2013 and Spring 2014

AWARDS & RECOGNITION

John L. Simpson ABD Graduate Students Research Fellowship in International & Area Studies to undertake doctoral fieldwork, University of California, Berkeley, 2022 & 2024

Farrand Dissertation Research Grant for Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning students at the University of California, Berkeley, 2022

Global Metropolitan Studies Grant for students in the Designated Emphasis to undertake summer fieldwork, 2020

Regent’s Fellowship for exceptional applicants to doctoral programs in the humanities and the social sciences at the University of California, Berkeley, 2019

Dimitris Pikionis Award for outstanding academic performance in the Master in Design Studies at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, 2018

“La Caixa” Foundation full scholarship awarded to 48 students all over Spain to undertake graduate studies in any field in the US and Canada, 2016

General Scholarship from the Spanish Ministry of Education to undertake graduate studies in a Spanish University, 2015

Collaboration Scholarship from the Spanish Ministry of Education to participate in research activities with Professor Ángel Martín Ramos and the Urban Design and Planning Department at ETSAB, UPC, 2012

Publications

(Under review) Fité Matamoros, Pol. “Orchestrating difference and similarity: The spatial redrawing of racial categories in Spanish colonial Morocco, Sahara, and Guinea”. In International Journal of Urban and Regional Research (IJURR).

(Under preparation) Brand, Anna and Pol Fité Matamoros (co-editors). White, Green, Black: Methodological Racisms in Urban Greening Projects. Urban Affairs Rights to the City book series.

(Under preparation) Brand, Anna and Pol Fité Matamoros (first co-authorship). “Methodological Whiteness: Dissecting Post-Katrina Greening Imaginaries.” In Brand, Anna and Pol Fité Matamoros (co-eds.) White, Green, Black.

Doherty, Gareth and Pol Fité Matamoros (first co-authorship). “The Region as a Landscape: Borders, Brexit and the Irish Northwest.” in Socio-Ecological Practice Research (SEPR).

Pol Fité Matamoros. “Peripheral urbanization in Buenos Aires, Istanbul, and Barcelona: A ‘southern’ look at the Spanish urbanitzacions.” in Urbanism Research Journal (QRU). Barcelona: Edicions UPC, 2023.

Fité Matamoros, Pol. “Bay Area’s Innovation Waterfronts: Public Space as Productive Space.” In PORTUS | Port-city relationship and Urban Waterfront Redevelopment, 45. Venice: RETE publisher, June 2023.

Doherty, Gareth and Pol Fité Matamoros (first co-authorship). “From line to landscape: The Irish Northwest border region.” In Architectural Design: The Landscapists. Guest edited by Ed Wall. London: Wiley, 2020.

Peremiquel Lluch, Francesc and Pol Fité Matamoros. “Un catálogo de fragmentos de crecimiento residencial contemporáneo.” In Crecimiento Residencial Contemporáneo Español. Barcelona: Edicions UPC, 2015.