Dr. Daniela Ortiz dos Santos
— Scientific Coordination
Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main, Kunstgeschichtliches Institut 2026-27 Fellow at the Käte Hamburger Kolleg "global dis:connect"
Daniela Ortiz dos Santos is an architectural historian whose work is at the crossroads of the cultural studies of art, literature, and architecture. Her research on transatlantic architectural history examines how spatial practices, transnational networks, and institutions shape the construction, consumption, and exploitation of Global South communities, histories, and images. She has published and presented my reflections and findings in English, French, German, Spanish, and Portuguese at academic and non-academic events in Europe and the Americas.
She studied Architecture and Urbanism in Buenos Aires (UBA) and in Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) and received her PhD in History and Theory of Architecture from the ETH Zurich (funded by the SNF). She is currently an assistant professor at the Art History Institute of the Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main.
Thanks to generous funding from institutions based in Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Switzerland, and the USA, she has had the privilege of studying, teaching, and conducting research in various countries and contexts across the Atlantic.
Her current book project (Habilitation) examines the transatlantic diaspora, architectural historiography, and UNESCO’s cultural agenda during the Cold War. Since 2020, my articles on these topics have been accepted for presentation at international venues, and I contributed to six peer-reviewed thematic issues in journals and books (one manuscript is now in press).
Among the most relevant venues and output include conceiving the symposium Architectural History and International Organizations at the Goethe University (20222), authoring the chapter „The Geopolitics of Baroque“ for the volume Reference and Contemporaneity in Architecture (Transcript, 2026), the chapter “Italian Roots in Latin American Architectural History” for the anthology Italian Imprints on Twentieth-Century Architecture published by Bloomsbury (2022), and co-editing the publications Criticism, Media Memory (1930’s-1970’s) (RIOBOOKS, 2026) and Zeitgenössische feministische Raumpraxis (ARCH+. February 2022), as well as a special edition on archives and architecture at the Scientific Journal of Architecture of the University of Brasilia Paranoá (January 2022).
Daniela is the author of Invisible Files in Visible Institutions: Notes on Max Cetto’s Papers (CRITIQUE D’ART, 2020), Blaise Cendrars et Le Corbusier: villes et voyages utiles (KOMODO21, 2018), co-author of the book chapter Fazer por cronologias: Por uma historia escrita nos corpos (EDUFBA, 2019).
She is the Principal Investigator of the research network group Critica-Memoria, together with Brazilian and Portuguese art and architectural historians based in Brazil and Portugal, and was an associate researcher on the project „HERITAGESCAPES. Critical Mapping of Metropolitan Cultural Landscape. Future Heritages“ headed by the Cultural Landscape Research Group (GIPC) at ETSAM/UPM and funded by the Spanish Research Agency.
Her work has also appeared in international conference proceedings organized by the Latin American Studies Association (LASA), the European Architectural History Network (EAHN), the Documentation and Conservation of the buildings, sites and neighborhoods of the Modern Movement (DOCOMOMO), the Society of Architectural Historians (SAH, forthcoming) and the Iberian-American Network of Urban History.
As an educator at Goethe University Frankfurt, she led pedagogical projects that engaged partner universities and museums, including the BIP Erasmus on housing with architectural schools in Portugal (Iscte), Spain (ETSAM/UPM), Italy (Polimi) and France (ENSA-Rouen), exhibition projects and venues with the Deutsches Architekturmuseum, the Museum Giersch of the Goethe University Frankfurt, the Garagem Sul in Lisbon, the German Pavilion as part of the 18th Venice Architecture Biennale, the gta Exhibitions and the Pavillon Le /Museum für Gestaltung in Zurich.
Daniela was a fellow at the Johanna Quandt Young Academy at Goethe (JQYA), being awarded a sabbatical fellowship for the Winter Semester 2022.
From October 2026 until July 2027, Daniela is taking a sabbatical leave to complete her Habilitation book as part of the fellowship program of the Käte Hamburger Kolleg „global dis:connect“ at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München.
Selection of Teaching Activities
Unesco Marking Architecture Culture – Seminar/Summer Semester 2022
Which Histories? – Survey Course on Architectural History/Summer Semester 2022
Architecture, Archives and Activism – Seminar/Winter Semester 2021/2022, with Sarah Borree and Frederike Lausch
What Kind of Cities do We Want to Live In? – Webinar/Winter Winter Semester 2020-2021
The Meaning of Architecture Today – Propaedeutic Course/Winter Semester 2020-2021, with Carsten Ruhl
History and Theory in Architectural Periodicals – Master’s Seminar/Summer Semester 2020
Critical Agendas for Architecture: Feminism and Modern Architecture– Bachelor’s Seminar/Summer Semester 2020
Displacement and the Making of Modern Architecture – Seminar & Colloquium/Winter Semester 2019-2020
Architectural History in Exile. Transatlantic Displacements (1914-1975) – Master’s Seminar/Summer Semester 2018
