“Architecture is always about communication. But what does it have to say?”

Sergio M. Figueiredo is an Assistant Professor at the Chair of Architectural History and Theory in the Department of the Built Environment at Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e). His areas of expertise include history of arts and architecture, as well as architecture museums and exhibitions. His research focuses on architectural institutions and how they operate within architectural culture. His group, the Curatorial Research Collective, brings research and education together to further our understanding of how architecture communicates to a broad audience, commonly using architectural exhibitions both as a research object and as an output platform for scholarship. 

Sergio is the coordinator for AUDE’s research seminars and the chair of the unit’s Research committee. An important part of his work focuses on developing students’ research skills, both on quantitative and qualitative methods, from archival work to algorithmic analysis. Currently, he is developing a large research project titled ‘The Taxonomy of Architectural Exhibitions’ in which both are combined to examine how architecture has been communicated through exhibitions (and perceived by the general public) over the past 30 years. Effectively, this research project identifies the constituent elements of a large number of exhibitions and reflects on the instruments, methods and practices that have continuously shaped the public exhibition of architecture.

Sergio M. Figueiredo obtained his PhD in Architectural History and Theory from UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles) in 2014 as a Fulbright scholar, with a thesis on the Netherlands Architecture Institute (NAi), on which he has also published a book entitled “The NAi Effect: Creating Architecture Culture". He holds an MSc in Architecture from the Academy of Architecture in Amsterdam and an MSc in Architecture and Urbanism from the Technical University of Lisbon.

Sergio is often a guest speaker and writes for a wide selection of journals. He has also acted as guest editor for the journal OASE for a special issue on architecture museums. Sergio also regularly contributes to a significant number of public seminars and events, including the Dutch Design Week and the ‘Dag van de Architectuur’ (Day of Architecture). He also organizes a variety of public workshops and conferences, most recently acting as chair for the international conference ‘Smartness? Between Discourse and Practice’ and as a session chair for the Society of Architectural Historians (SAH).