Dr Iuliana Gavril is a Senior Lecturer in Architecture, Cultural Context coordinator on the BA Architecture Course, and the Created and Contested Territories research group champion. As an educator, Iuliana has experience of developing, planning, and facilitating a variety of educational programmes ranging from undergraduate and postgraduate design studios to cross-disciplinary undergraduate seminars on architectural history, theory, and criticism. She has been a Visiting Professor at the Polytechnic University of Milan, and is a keen urban sketcher (on-location drawing).
My interdisciplinary research interests lie between writing about architecture as an alternative architectural practice to design and Late Antique and Medieval architectural theories and histories. I received my DPhil from the University of Sussex, with a thesis on the Byzantine monument of Hagia Sophia as an ‘archi-text’ for contemplation and hold a short-time postdoctoral fellowship at Radboud University, Nijmegen, the Netherlands.
I am member of the European Network of Architectural Histories since 2014, and was a general editor of its journal Architectural Histories (2014-2018). As part of Created and Contested Territories Research Group at NUA, I have started focusing on contested architectural narratives, especially in relation to the Byzantine monument of Hagia Sophia.
Research
- 2021: ‘Architectural Endurance Through Contestation: The Case Study of Hagia Sophia,’ Conference Paper: EAHN Thematic Conference ‘Endurance and Architecture, Ankara, 30 Sept-2 Oct 2021.
- 2021: ‘Hagia Sophia as a Site of Contestation,’ Conference Paper: Contested That: Creative Conflict in Theory and Practice; NUA Created and Contested Territory International Conference. Norwich (online) 23-24 April 2021.
- 2019: ‘Walls: An Architect’s Manifesto,’ Symposium Paper: Territory Symposium related to the exhibition to the NUA Territory: Exhibition in a Box, CLB Berlin, 26-27 April 2019.
- 2019: ‘Hagia Sophia as a Monument of Empire and Its Place in the Nineteenth-Century Art Historical Narratives,’ Conference Paper: Interdisciplinary Nineteenth Century Studies: Monuments and Memory, Dallas, 21-24 March 2019.
- 2018: ‘Architectural Criticism in Byzantium: a misplaced concept and endeavour?’ Seminar Paper: World Art Research Seminars, University of East Anglia, Norwich, 24 Oct 2018.
- 2017: ‘Christopher Wren and the Origins of Architecture’, Conference Paper: The Architect as Active Reader, Museo Palladio -The Centro Internazionale di Studi di Architettura Andrea Palladio, Vicenza, 15-17 June 2017.
- 2016: ‘Architectural criticism before an ‘era of criticism’: ‘The Voice’ Byzantine,’ Conference Paper: Writing Buildings, University of Kent, 14-17 July 2016.
- 2016: ‘A Byzantinist with an interest in architecture or an architectural historian specializing in “things” Byzantine? Conference Paper: Forth International Meeting of European Network of Architectural Historians, Dublin, 2-5 June 2016
- 2016: ‘At Home with Oneself’ in a Monk’s Cell: Dwelling in Heaven in Perspectives on Space and Place. Proceedings of the Sixth Global Conference Space and Place 2015, ed. by Heidi Seetzen, Oxford: Inter-Disciplinary.Net, 2016.
- 2015: ‘At home with oneself’ in a monk’s cell: dwelling in heaven’, Conference Paper: The Space and Place Project: 6th Global Meeting, Mansfield College, Oxford, 3-5 September 2015.
- 2015: ‘The architectural history of Hagia Sophia in the first half of the nineteenth century in England: between experience and visual representations’, Conference Paper: Trondheim Colloquium on the History of Architectural Historiography, Trondheim, 12-14 June 2015.
- 2014: ‘Building with Light: Considering the Spatial Qualities of the Interior of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople’ in Manipulating Light in Premodern Times / Manipolare la luce in epoca premoderna, ed. by Daniela Mondini and Vladimir Ivanovici, Milano: Mendrisio Academy Press / Silvana Editoriale Cinisello Balsamo, 2014, pp. 45-62.
- 2014: ‘Limitations of Building Typologies in Describing the Experience the Architectural experience of Early Christian Basilicas’, Conference Paper: ARCHHIST ‘14/History of architecture Conference: Movements and Outsiders in the History of Architecture, Istanbul, 21-22 April 2014.
- 2013: ‘A Homily with a Description of the Church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople – translation and commentary’, co-authored with Liz James, in Byzantion, 83 (2013), pp. 149-160.
Practice
- 2019-2021: Untitled, 2019, print, part of group creative practice Territory: Exhibition in a Box, displayed at:
- 11 January -11 March 2021: Wright Gallery (College of Architecture), Texas A&M University, USA
- 26 April – 04 May 2019: CLB – Collaboratorium für das Zusammenspiel von kulturwissenschaftlicher Forschung, Berlin, Germany
- 29 March -17 May 2019: Lust and the Apple Gallery, Gorebridge, Scotland
Other Activities
- 2014-present: European Architectural History Network – Member
- 2014-present: Higher Education Academy – Fellow
- 2017-present: Norwich University of the Arts Research Committee – Member
- 2018-present: UK Research and Innovation Future Leaders Fellowships – Member of the Peer Review College, reviewer of interdisciplinary fellowship applications
- 2020-present: NUA Created and Contested Territories Research Group Champion
- 2021-present: Journal of Architecture – Peer-reviewer
- 2014-2017: Society of Architectural Historians in Great Britain – Member
- 2014-2018: Architectural Histories, the open access journal of the European Architectural History Network – General Editor