“I had to learn to read the archives against the grain.”

In This Episode

Nina Stritzler-Levine speaks with historian, theorist, and exhibitor Samia Henni about her approach to architectural history informed by her experience growing up in Algeria in the aftermath of French colonial rule. With targeted attention to the crucial role of the archive, both personal and collective, Henni poignantly highlights the significance of personal histories in combating colonial erasure.

Download a transcript of episode 2.

Listen on Spotify.

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Samia Henni is a historian, a theorist, an educator, and an exhibition maker of the built, destroyed, and imagined environment. She teaches at the Department of Architecture, College of Architecture, Art, and Planning, Cornell University. She is the author of the multi-award-winning Architecture of Counterrevolution: The French Army in Northern Algeria (EN, gta Verlag, 2017; FR, Edition B42, 2019) and the editor of War Zones (EN, gta Verlag, 2018). She received her PhD (with distinction, ETH Medal) in the history and theory of architecture from the gta Institute, ETH Zurich, Switzerland. She taught at Princeton University’s School of Architecture, ETH Zurich, and the Geneva University of Art and Design. She has created various exhibitions, including Discreet Violence: Architecture and the French War in Algeria (2017–19, Zurich, Rotterdam, Berlin, Paris, Johannesburg, Prague, Philadelphia, and Ithaca) and Housing Pharmacology at the Museum of Marseille History and Right to Housing at Grobet-Labadié Museum in Marseille, which were part of the exhibition Traits d’union.s curated by Alya Sebti, Katerina Chuchalina, and Stefan Kalmar at Manifesta 13 in Marseille (August–November 2020).

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References

• Nina Stritzler-Levine
  

• Focus Project Exhibitions
  

• Samia Henni
  

• Black Lives Matter
  

• ETH Zurich
  

• Philip Ursprung
  

• The Goethe-Institut
  

• Architecture of Counterrevolution: The French Army in Northern Algeria (Henni)
  

• Algerian Revolution

• History of Architecture I: Empires and People; Gender, Architecture, Intersectionality; Wars and Built Environments; Practicum: Tell Me About Your Archive
  

• Archive Fever (Derrida)
  

• The Archeology of Knowledge (Foucault) and Language, Counter Memory, Practice (Foucault)
  

• Me Too Movement
  

• “Designing for the ‘milieu féminin’: France’s Attempts to Keep Algerian Women Away from Islamic Customs” (Henni)
  

• Le Code de l’indigénat
  

• Unlearning Whiteness (Black Faculty of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation)
  

• Discreet Violence: Architecture and the French War in Algeria

• Manifesta 13, Marseille

• Housing Pharmacology

• The Right To Housing

• Artek and the Aaltos: Creating a Modern World

• French President Emmanuel Macron (March 16, 2020)

• Donald Trump’s Proposed Executive Order “Making Federal Buildings Beautiful Again”

• “The Coloniality of an Executive Order” (Henni)

• “Colonial Ramifications” (Henni)

• Preston H. Thomas Memorial lectures, “Into the Deserts: Questions of Coloniality and Toxicity”

• Capitalocene

• Anthropocene

• Alienation and Freedom (Fanon)