Despina Stratigakos

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Despina Stratigakos (born 1963) is a Canadian-born architectural historian, writer, former vice provost, and Distinguished Professor [1] of architecture at the University at Buffalo. [2]

Contents

Education

Stratigakos was born in Montreal, Quebec, and received her undergraduate education from the University of Toronto and her Master of Arts from the University of California Berkeley. She earned her Ph.D. from Bryn Mawr College. She taught at Harvard University and the University of Michigan before joining the School of Architecture and Planning at the University at Buffalo.

Academic career

From 2018 to 2022, Stratigakos served as the University at Buffalo's Vice Provost of Inclusive Excellence. [3] Stratigakos previously served as a Director of the Society of Architectural Historians, an Advisor of the International Archive of Women in Architecture at Virginia Tech, a Trustee of the Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation, and Deputy Director of the Gender Institute at the University at Buffalo. [4] [5] [6]

She also participated on Buffalo's municipal Diversity in Architecture task force and was a founding member of the Architecture and Design Academy, an initiative of the Buffalo Public Schools to encourage design literacy and academic excellence. In 2016–17, Stratigakos was a member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. [7]

Publications

Stratigakos's books explore the intersections of power and architecture. Hitler’s Northern Utopia: Building the New Order in Occupied Norway (2020) recounts how architects and planners envisioned and began to build a model “Aryan” society in Norway during World War II, [8] . This book won the Society of Architectural Historians 2022 Spiro Kostof Book Prize. [9] [10] Where Are the Women Architects? (2016) [11] [12] [13] confronts the challenges women face in the architectural profession. Hitler at Home (2015) [14] [15] [16] [17] investigates the architectural and ideological construction of the Führer's domesticity. A Women’s Berlin: Building the Modern City (2008) traces the history of a forgotten female metropolis. [18] This book won the German Studies Association DAAD Book Prize [19] and the Milka Bliznakov Research Prize. [20]

Stratigakos's publications on the Third Reich have brought previously unknown histories to light, including the influential role of Gerdy Troost, Hitler's interior decorator. [21] Stratigakos has published on the dangers of erasure of memory and normalization in writing about the Nazis. [22] [23] [24]

Stratigakos is an internationally recognized scholar of diversity and equity in architecture. [25] She has published widely on issues of diversity in architecture. [26] [27] [28] Her 2013 Places Journal article, "Unforgetting Women Architects," on the neglect of women architects in history books and the need to include them in Wikipedia inspired the emergence of Wikipedia edit-a-thons focused on women in design. [29]

Stratigakos has also written about the lack of diversity in representations of architects in Hollywood films as well as among architecture's elite prize winners. [30] [31] In 2007 she curated an exhibition on Architect Barbie at the University of Michigan to focus attention on gendered stereotypes within the architectural profession. [32] In 2011, she collaborated with Mattel on the development and launch of Architect Barbie in the Barbie I Can Be series. [33]

Books

Honors and awards

References

  1. "Eight named SUNY Distinguished Professors". www.buffalo.edu. Retrieved 2025-08-27.
  2. "Despina Stratigakos - UB - University at Buffalo". ap.buffalo.edu. Retrieved 2017-03-30.
  3. "Stratigakos to lead Inclusive Excellence". buffalo.edu. Retrieved 2020-08-24.
  4. "Despina Stratigakos on Women in Architecture | Abitare". Abitare. 2013-06-03. Retrieved 2017-03-30.
  5. "Despina Stratigakos is New Deputy Director of the UB Gender Institute - University at Buffalo". buffalo.edu. Retrieved 2017-03-30.
  6. "IAS Faculty and Members 2016–2017" (PDF).{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  7. "Current Members and Visitors | School of Historical Studies". hs.ias.edu. Retrieved 2017-03-30.
  8. Stratigakos, Despina (2020-08-18). Hitler's Northern Utopia. ISBN   978-0-691-19821-7.
  9. "SAH Newsletter". Default. Retrieved 2023-02-25.
  10. "UB professor's book receives award from Society of Architectural Historians". www.buffalo.edu. Retrieved 2025-08-27.
  11. Stratigakos, Despina (12 April 2016). Stratigakos, D.: Where Are the Women Architects?. Princeton University Press. ISBN   9780691170138.
  12. Tavris, Carol (2016-04-29). "Breaking Out of the Box". The Wall Street Journal. ISSN   0099-9660 . Retrieved 2017-03-30.
  13. "Book Review: Where Are the Women Architects? - Spacing National". Spacing National. 2017-01-24. Retrieved 2017-03-30.
  14. Stratigakos, Despina (2015). Hitler at Home | Yale University Press. ISBN   9780300183818.
  15. "The Role of Décor in Hitler's Life". The New York Times. 2015-08-27. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2017-03-30.
  16. Stratigakos, Despina (2008). "Hitler at Home by Despina Stratigakos". U of Minnesota Press. ISBN   978-0-8166-5322-5.
  17. Filler, Martin (17 December 2015). "Hanging Out with Hitler". The New York Review of Books. Vol. 62, no. 20. Retrieved 2017-03-30.
  18. "A Women's Berlin: Building the Modern City". Times Higher Education (THE). 2009-07-02. Retrieved 2017-03-30.
  19. "Despina Stratigakos' "A Woman's Berlin" Wins 2009 German Academic Book Award". ap.buffalo.edu. Retrieved 2017-03-30.
  20. "A Guide to the Milka Bliznakov Prize Records, 1999-2012Milka Bliznakov Prize Records, Ms2001-045". ead.lib.virginia.edu. Retrieved 2017-03-30.
  21. "Sites Unseen". THE SITE MAGAZINE. 10 August 2018. Retrieved 2020-08-24.
  22. Stratigakos, Despina (28 October 2016). Lehr, Nick (ed.). "Could razing Hitler's first home backfire?". The Conversation. doi:10.64628/AAI.hvxwjwfpn . Retrieved 2020-08-24.
  23. "The Invasion of Memory: Hitler's Attempt to Rewrite the History of World War I". architectmagazine.com. 6 November 2019. Retrieved 2020-08-24.
  24. Stratigakos, Despina (2017-12-12). "It's Not That Hard To Avoid Normalizing Nazis". The Atlantic. Retrieved 2020-08-24.
  25. "Breaking the Cycle: Despina Stratigakos on Historical Amnesia, the Magic of Architecture, and Creating Conditions for Change". Madame Architect. 7 March 2019. Retrieved 2020-08-24.
  26. "Architecture's New Feminist Activism Tackles the Profession's Gender-Bias". Metropolis. 2016-03-15. Retrieved 2017-03-30.
  27. "Women architects: Building change". aljazeera.com. Retrieved 2017-03-30.
  28. "Why is the world of architecture so male-dominated?". Los Angeles Times. 2016-04-21. ISSN   0458-3035 . Retrieved 2017-03-30.
  29. Stratigakos, Despina (2016-04-12). "Unforgetting Women Architects: From the Pritzker to Wikipedia". Places Journal (2013). doi: 10.22269/130603 .
  30. Stratigakos, Despina (2016-09-06). "Hollywood Architects". Places Journal (2016). doi: 10.22269/160906 .
  31. "Architecture Has a Woman Problem. Zaha Hadid Knew It Well". Slate. 2016-04-11. ISSN   1091-2339 . Retrieved 2017-03-30.
  32. "Architect Barbie's Political Underpinnings". The Chronicle of Higher Education. 2011-10-09. Retrieved 2017-03-30.
  33. Stratigakos, Despina (2011-06-13). "What I Learned from Architect Barbie". Places Journal (2011). doi: 10.22269/110613 .
  34. "Finding Ella Briggs | Princeton University Press". press.princeton.edu. 2025-10-14. Retrieved 2025-08-27.
  35. "Hitler's Northern Utopia | Princeton University Press". press.princeton.edu. 2020-08-18. Retrieved 2025-03-31.
  36. "Where Are the Women Architects? | Princeton University Press". press.princeton.edu. 2016-04-12. Retrieved 2025-03-31.
  37. "Hitler at Home". Yale University Press. Retrieved 2025-03-31.
  38. Stratigakos, Despina (2008). A Women's Berlin: Building the Modern City. U of Minnesota Press. ISBN   978-0-8166-5322-5.
  39. "Current Members and Visitors | School of Historical Studies". hs.ias.edu. Retrieved 2017-03-30.
  40. "'Hitler at Home' -- A Study in the Politics of Domestic Aesthetics - University at Buffalo". buffalo.edu. Retrieved 2017-03-30.
  41. "Visiting Faculty | Humanities Research Center". hrc.rice.edu. Archived from the original on 2017-03-31. Retrieved 2017-03-30.
  42. "Former Fellows | Taubman College of Architecture & Urban Planning". taubmancollege.umich.edu. Retrieved 2017-03-30.