Hélène Jannière

Architect and architectural historian Hélène Jannière (1962, France) has been Professor of Contemporary Architectural History at Rennes 2 University since 2012. She has been a visiting researcher at the Canadian Centre for Architecture (2001), the Politecnico di Milano (2024) and a visiting professor at the Universidad Torcuato Di Tella (Buenos Aires, 2024). Her research focuses on the history of architectural reviews and criticism in the twentieth century. Her publications include Critique et architecture: un état des lieux contemporain (2019) and Architectural criticism, a disputed space. Critics, architects, public opinion. France 1953-1977 (2025).

During the 1950s, architectural critics seized on the terms vandali and vandalismo to denounce the demolition of old buildings and districts. Questioning the resurgence of these terms, the residency project will investigate the role of Italian art and architecture historians and critics in controversies over historic centers and, from the 1960s onwards, the denaturing of natural landscapes. By examining cases of destruction or damage to the landscape in Rome, the aim of the project will be to identify the relationship between architectural criticism and heritage in Italy, from the mid-1950s to the early 1970s.