Beatriz Colomina
Beatriz Colomina (born 1952) is a Spanish-American architecture historian, theorist, and curator. She is the founding director of the Program in Media and Modernity at Princeton University, the Howard Crosby Butler Professor of the History of Architecture and director of graduate studies (PhD program) in the School of Architecture.
Beatriz Colomina

Columbia GSAPP · What happened to the architectural manifesto? · CC BY 2.0
- Name
- Beatriz Colomina
- Born
- 1952
- Birthplace
- Madrid, Spain
- Field
- Art history, Architectural history, Architectural theory
- Nationality
- Spain
- Occupation
- historian · university teacher · architect
- Fields
- art history
- Education
- University of Barcelona
- Honours
- Berlin Prize
- Languages
- Spanish
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Documentary summary
Beatriz Colomina (born 1952) is a Spanish-American architecture historian, theorist, and curator. She is the founding director of the Program in Media and Modernity at Princeton University, the Howard Crosby Butler Professor of the History of Architecture and director of graduate studies (PhD program) in the School of Architecture.
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Beatriz Colomina (born 1952) is a Spanish architect, historian and university teacher. The architect was born in Madrid.
Beatriz Colomina studied at University of Barcelona. The architect worked for Columbia University and Princeton University. Beatriz Colomina is active in art history.
Languages used include Spanish. The architect received Berlin Prize.
Composed from admitted, traceable facts · 01 October 2026
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Documentary evidence
Documentary basis
Authority files
wikidata · Q8386273 · wikipedia · Beatriz Colomina
In this article
Biography
Biography
Colomina worked across art historian, historian, university teacher, architect and architectural historian. This article rests on 46 published texts and 29 scholarly references drawn from named institutional registers. Every statement below returns to a source shown in the evidence panel; where the record is silent or divided, the article says so instead of resolving it.
Key facts
Key facts
• Name — Beatriz Colomina • Born — 1952 • Birthplace — Madrid, Spain • Field — Art history, Architectural history, Architectural theory
Early life and education
Early life and education
Colomina is from Valencia and she began her initial studies of architecture at the Technical university of Valencia. But she later moved to Escola Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de Barcelona, Universidad Politécnica de Barcelona, where she completed her education. Here, her interests in History, Theory & Urbanism were nurtured under the guidance of a group of teachers that included Josep Quetglas and Ignasi de Solà-Morales. Even as a student, she began working for the Department of History, Theory and Urbanism by translating two of Tafuri's writings, with an Italian friend. Shortly after her graduation, she was hired by the Department of Urbanism. Her acquaintance with Richard Sennett lead to a fellowship in New York Institute for the Humanities and she moved to the USA in 1981. The people she met at this interdisciplinary institute, like Carl Schorske, Susan Sontag and Wolfgang Schivelbusch had a major influence in her later work.
Career
Career
Colomina has built a multifaceted career through her work in academia, publishing, and exhibitions, contributing to each of these fields over the course of her professional career.
Academia
Academia
She began her teaching at the age of 23, in Barcelona immediately after her graduation. After a short break, during which she served the fellowship at the New York Institute for the Humanities, her teaching career continued when she moved to Columbia University in 1982. She later moved to Princeton University in 1988 and continues teaching there. Besides her role as a tenured professor, she has lectured extensively. She has lectured at the Museum of Modern Art in NYC, the Architectural Institute of Japan, Guggenheim in NY, the Center for Contemporary Art and Architecture in Stockholm, the DIA Art Foundation in NY, Tate Britain in London, Harvard University, Yale University, Columbia University, ETH in Zurich, Delft University, Bauhaus University in Weimar, Middle East Technical University in Ankara, Lebanese American University, University of Beirut, and Seoul University. She serves on the advisory board of several institutions. She was awarded the 2020 Ada Louise Huxtable Prize. Notable doctoral students of Colomina's include architectural historian Joanna Merwood-Salisbury.
Publishing
Publishing
Colomina has written about architecture and the modern institutions of representation, particularly the printed media, photography, advertising, film and TV. Her books have received recognitions including International Book Award by the American Institute of Architects for Sexuality and Space (1993) & Privacy and Publicity (1995). Some of her early contributions to other publications include The Sex of Architecture (Abrams, 1996), Dan Graham (2001), Philip Johnson: The Constancy of Change (2009), Domesticity at War (2007), Cold War Hothouses (2004), Raumplan Versus Plan Libre: Adolf Loos and Le Corbusier (1988). She has authored numerous articles and has been on the editorial board of such periodicals as Assemblage, Daidalos, and Grey Room.
Exhibitions
Exhibitions
Colomina has curated, often in collaboration with her students, a number of international exhibitions.
Clip/Stamp/Fold (2006)
Clip/Stamp/Fold (2006)
An exhibition created by Colomina as a provocation in itself and as an exploration of the relationship between architecture and media. It is the outcome of research work taken up with her students at Princeton on 'little magazines of the 1960s and 70s'. This exhibition was originally held at New York's Storefront for Art and Architecture in 2006. It has since traveled to many locations worldwide, including the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montreal in 2007; the Architectural Association in London in 2008; and the GAM Cultural Centre in Santiago de Chile in 2013.
Playboy Architecture: 1953–1979 (2012)
Playboy Architecture: 1953–1979 (2012)
The exhibition showcased how the fields of Architecture and Design helped shape the Playboy Fantasy and how the Playboy magazine helped spread new and radical architectural ideas. It was displayed in the Netherlands at Bureau Europa (Maastricht) in 2012 and at Elmhurst Art Museum, Elmhurst, Illinois in 2016.
Radical Pedagogies: Reconstructing Architectural Education (2014)
Radical Pedagogies: Reconstructing Architectural Education (2014)
The exhibition is the result of an on-going collaborative research project with her doctoral students at Princeton. The research focuses on architectural educational programs and schools that emerged post war and were strongly tied to the social changes of that time. It was first displayed in the Monditalia section of the Venice Biennale 2014 and has been exhibited in several locations since.
Curatorship
Curatorship
Colomina was the chief curator of Curated by Vienna: The Century of the Bed in Vienna in 2014 and was co-curator of the third Istanbul Design Biennial (2016) on the theme Are We Human? The Design of the Species. She exhibited an installation at the inaugural biennale of Architecture and Urbanism in Seoul in 2017.
Personal life
Personal life
Beatriz Colomina is married to New Zealand born architect and author Mark Wigley, who has collaborated with her on several occasions.
Official pages
Official pages
• Beatriz Colomina | Princeton University School of Architecture • Beatriz Colomina
Interviews
Interviews
• Playboy Magazine and the Architecture of Seduction | Architect Magazine • Beatriz Colomina in conversation with Sylvia Lavin (January 29, 2013) • X-Ray Architecture • Architecture and the Great Confinement: Beatriz Colomina with Carie Penabad
Reviews and mentions
Reviews and mentions
• "We should think very seriously about what a bed is today" says Beatriz Colomina". Dezeen. 2018-10-12. • Kaminer, T. 2009, Framing Colomina • "Harvard Design Magazine: Sexuality and Space edited by Beatriz Colomina". www.harvarddesignmagazine.org • "The Staging of Healthy Living: a Review of Beatriz Colomina's X-Ray Architecture". Archinect.
Life and work
Life and work
Beatriz Colomina was born on 1 January 1952 in Madrid. Colomina held the nationality of Spain. Colomina was educated at University of Barcelona. Married to: Mark Wigley. Colomina worked as art historian, historian, university teacher and architect, and the authority record catalogues a further 1 occupations under the same name, among them architectural historian. Colomina was employed by Princeton University (1988) and Columbia University. Colomina worked in Spanish.
Lectures
• Work Marathon 2018, Serpentine Galleries, 2019. • Broadcasting Yourself – Social Media Urbanism with response by Kieran Long, ArkDes, 2018. • The Secret Life of Modern Architecture or We don't need another hero, Harvard GSD, 2018. • Towards a Radical Pedagogy, The University of Edinburgh, 2017. • Architecture as Mass Media, Vitra Design Museum, 2016. • Privacy and Publicity, AA School of Architecture, 2015. • Radical Pedagogies, Strelka Institute, 2014. • Double Exposure: Architecture as a machine to See, AA School of Architecture, 2012.
Published articles
Published articles
• Colomina, B. (1999). Couplings. Rearrangements, A Smithson's Celebration, OASE, (51), 20–33. • "The 24/7 Bed". WORK, BODY, LEISURE. 2018-04-03.
Books and published writings
Catalogued output
Books and published writings
These are catalogued publications carrying the name — editions and printings, distinct from the works they contain and from writing about the subject. The 2010s are the densest part of the run, with 19 titles, and that concentration is a fact about what the registers have catalogued rather than a judgement on the work itself. A selection is set out below and the complete run may be opened beneath it.
46 editions carry dates between 1981 and 2025
The run opens with Louise Bourgeois and closes with Sick Architecture
The entries follow Open Library
Louise Bourgeois
1981
Le Corbusier and photography
1987
L'Esprit nouveau
1987
Architectureproduction
1988
Raumplan versus Plan libre
1988
Sexuality & space
1992
Privacy and Publicity
1994
Architectu-re-production (Revisions, Vol 2)
1996
Sexuality & Space (Princeton Papers on Architecture)
1997
The complete catalogue · 51
46 editions carry dates between 1981 and 2025
The run opens with Louise Bourgeois and closes with Sick Architecture
The entries follow Open Library
Louise Bourgeois
1981
Le Corbusier and photography
1987
L'Esprit nouveau
1987
Architectureproduction
1988
Raumplan versus Plan libre
1988
Sexuality & space
1992
Privacy and Publicity
1994
Architectu-re-production (Revisions, Vol 2)
1996
Sexuality & Space (Princeton Papers on Architecture)
1997
La publicité du privé
1998
Contra la arquitectura
2000
Domesticity at War
2001
Rachel Whiteread
2003
Alison and Peter Smithson
2004
Cold war hothouses
2005
Doble exposición
2006
Ausstellung, Serpentine Gallery, 6
June - 20
August 2006, London
2006
Thomas Demand
2006
Domesticidad en Guerra
2007
Art of Projection
2009
Philip Johnson
2009
Södrakull Frösakull
2010
Mahremiyet ve Kamusallik
2011
Clip Stamp Fold The Radical Architecture Of Little Magazines 196x To 197x
2011
Maniera Moderna
2012
Oxymoron and pleonasm
2014
In Extremis
2014
Editar para transformar
2015
Century of the Bed
2015
Prostory touhy
2016
L'univers "Playboy"
2016
Modern life!
2017
Wendelien Van Oldenborgh - Cinema Olanda
2017
Are We Human?
2017
Mies Van der Rohe
2018
Superhumanity
2018
Towards a Radical Pedagogy
2018
Discordo Ergo Sum
2019
Legacy of Transgressive Objects
2019
X-ray Architecture
2019
Manifesto Architeture
2020
Arquitectura de rayos x
2021
Clip, Stamp, Fold
2021
Psychic Wounds
2021
Radical Pedagogies
2022
Sick Architecture
2025
Teaching
Colomina taught, and is recorded as university teacher. The work is documented at Princeton University and Columbia University.
Primary material
Documents and archives
institutional register
- Wikidata, structured authority record Q8386273: Beatriz Colomina
General reference · Wikimedia Foundation
reference work
- “Beatriz Colomina”, English Wikipedia, consulted as further reading
Reputable secondary · Wikipedia
Awards and fellowships
• 2020 Ada Louise Huxtable Prize • 2007 Canadian Centre for Architecture Mellon Fellowship • 2005 Princeton University President's Award for Distinguished Teaching • 1995-1996 Samuel H. Kress Senior Fellowship at the CASVA • 1987 Graham Foundation Grant • SOM Foundation • Le Corbusier Foundation • The American Academy in Berlin and the Getty Center in Los Angeles
Authority records
Notes from the source article
Cited by Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
- 1."Beatriz Colomina". MIT Press. mitpress.mit.edu. Retrieved 5 September 2018.
- 2.Beatriz Colomina Princeton University School of Architecture. soa.princeton.edu.
- 3.Interview with Beatriz Colomina The Strength of Architecture From 1998. www.metalocus.es.
- 4.Colomina receives Ada Louise Huxtable Prize for Contribution to Architecture. Princeton University.
- 5.Merwood, Joanna Rachel. The mechanization of cladding: The Chicago skyscraper and the constructions of architectural modernity. Princeton University. 2003. 978-0-493-99512-0.
- 6.Beatriz Colomina Receives Ada Louise Huxtable Prize. ArchDaily. 2020-02-05.
- 7.Oosterman, Arjen. Clip/Stamp/Fold. Volume.
- 8.Storefront for Art and Architecture Programming: Exhibitions: Clip, Stamp, Fold: The Radical Architecture of Little Magazines, 196x – 197x. storefrontnews.org.
- 9.Playboy Architecture, 1953–1979 Elmhurst Art Museum. www.elmhurstartmuseum.org.
- 10.Radical Pedagogies.
- 11.Venice Biennale 2014: Radical Pedagogies, Exhibit Design by Amunátegui Valdés Architects. ArchDaily. 2014-06-20.
- 12.art-agenda. www.art-agenda.com.
- 13.Española, Acción Cultural. Seoul Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism 2017. www.accioncultural.es.
- 14.Beatriz Colomina and Mark Wigley appointed curators of the 3rd Biennial – Announcements – e-flux. www.e-flux.com.
- 15.We're all dressed up with something to show. The Sydney Morning Herald. 2004-05-31.
- 16.projekt bauhaus. Beatriz Colomina & Mark Wigley: Undoing the Bauhaus. 2018-10-08.
Bibliography printed in the source article · 10
- X-Ray Architecture, Lars Müller Publishers, 2019.
- Are We Human? Notes on an Archeology of Design, (with Mark Wigley), Lars Müller Publishers, 2019.
- Das Andere/The Other: A Journal for the Introduction of Western Culture into Austria, MAK Center for Art and Architecture, 2016.
- The Century of the Bed, Verlag für Moderne Kunst, 2015.
- Manifesto Architecture: The Ghost of Mies, Sternberg Press, 2014.
- Clip/Stamp/Fold: The Radical Architecture of Little Magazines 196X-197X, Actar, 2010.
- Domesticity at War, The MIT Press, 2007.
- Privacy and Publicity: Modern Architecture as Mass Media, The MIT Press, 1994.
- Sexuality and Space, Princeton Architectural Press, 1992 .
- Wilkinson, Tom. 2020. “Ada Louise Huxtable Prize – Beatriz Colomina : The Internationally Acclaimed Feminist Writer Shines a Spotlight on Sexual Prejudice and Representation in Architecture.” Architectural Review, no. 1469 (March): 108–111.
References
Citations
References
Each reference names the institution holding it, so a reader may go to the document itself.
institutional register
Wikidata, structured authority record Q8386273: Beatriz ColominaWikimedia Foundation
Secondary witnessreference work
Secondary witness
People, houses and institutions
Knowledge graph
People, houses and institutions
Teachers, collaborators, publishers and institutions recorded against this person, each on a stated basis.
Studied at
1- University of BarcelonaOrganisation
Established from a fact already recorded on a verified source.
The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 16 August 2026.
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