Bio

Dr. Roberto Fabbri is an architect, researcher, and associate professor at Zayed University, College of Arts and Creative Enterprises (UAE). He graduated cum laude from the University of Florence and received his Ph.D. from the University of Bologna.
In the same university is taught architectural studio design and exhibition design from 2001 to 2010. He was Visiting Scholar at the Center for Gulf Studies in Kuwait in 2013-2014 and in the same year taught architectural design at the American University of Kuwait. From 2016 to 2021, he was teaching at the Department of Arts, Architecture and Design at the University of Monterrey, Mexico, where he was also a National System of Research (SNI) member.
He alternates teaching with professional practice and theoretical studies. From 2010 to 2016 he was architect consultant for the United Nations Development Programme, in support of the museum institution Dar al-Athar al-Islamiyyah in Kuwait for rehabilitating museum spaces and designing exhibitions participating in the rehabilitation of the Kuwait National Museum and completing the transformation of the American Missionary Hospital of Kuwait into a cultural hub.

His research interest engages with the notion of narrative spaces, reading the role of heritage and architecture in the definition of processes such as modernization, identity-making, knowledge exchange and establishment of traditions. With an emphasis on the Middle East and the Gulf, Roberto’s research embraces 20th-century architecture and its potential reuse as well as cultural spaces - museums and exhibitions - in the Global South.

He presented his work in international conferences, recently at Yale, Cambridge, King’s College London, and INHA-Paris and co-organized the workshop “Re-engaging with the Gulf Modernist City: Heritage and Repurposing Practices” at the 2019 Gulf Research Meeting, University of Cambridge, UK. He has published extensively in academic journals, such as Domus; Faces - journal d’architecture, and International Journal of Islamic Architecture. Since 2021, he is a member of Architectural Histories’ Editorial Board and the International Journal of Architectural Research’s international board of reviewers. He has published two books on the architectural works of Max Bill (Mondadori 2011, inFolio 2017) and co-authored the double-volume, “Modern Architecture Kuwait 1949 – 89” (Niggli 2016, 2017). His new book, co-edited with Sultan Al-Qassimi, will be published in 2022 by Routledge.

Office

Abu Dhabi - Khalifa City, Abu Dhabi

Phone:

+971 2 599 3478

Email:

Research and Professional Activities

Narrative spaces; Architecture and Identity Representation; Museum and Exhibition Design; Modern Architecture and Heritage, Transnational Architecture in the Global South.