Boeri Elisa

Trained at Politecnico di Milano, she obtained in 2016 a joint PhD in Art History and Architectural History between Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne and IUAV University of Venice, with a dissertation on Jean-Jacques Lequeu and the Architecture Civile drawings held at the Bibliothèque nationale de France. Her research is situated within the cultural history of European architecture between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries, with particular attention to exchanges and cultural transfers between Italy, France, and Europe, and to the study of utopias, models, and representations.

Her work has increasingly explored the “architectures of exclusion” and spaces of confinement (including asylums and penal colonies), investigating the relationship between built forms, thresholds, and spatial dispositifs, and the practices of separation, isolation, or care in the modern and contemporary city. She is the author of books on Lequeu and on architectural culture between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, as well as studies on themes and figures of Italian modernity (including Luigi Carlo Daneri).

Career

BA in Architecture, Politecnico di Milano, 2009.

MA in Architecture, Politecnico di Milano, 2012.

Master MABIC, Politecnico di Milano, 2019.

Joint PhD in History of Art and History of Architecture, Université Panthéon-Sorbonne, Paris I (France) and Università di Venezia IUAV, Venice (Italy), 2016.

Research

Elisa Boeri has developed a sustained research line on institutional and utopian architectures, focusing on the spatial logics of total institutions as programmes that negotiate exclusion, retreat from public life, and the governance of difference in Europe between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries.
Grounded in archival research and critical theory, her work investigates how architectural form and modes of representation respond to changing cultural and political frameworks of isolation and protection, from Enlightenment debates to modern institutional reforms.

A key strand of her scholarship began with the reassessment of under-studied architects and imaginaries of Revolutionary France - most notably Jean-Jacques Lequeu - and has progressively expanded into a comparative inquiry into the transnational circulation and transfer of architectural models across Europe, including exchanges between East and West. In recent years, she has increasingly concentrated on asylum architectures and on the relationship between architecture and psychiatry within total institutions, paying particular attention to how forms, thresholds, and spatial dispositifs shape both the construction of the “other” and the lived experience of exclusion.

Selected Publications

Boeri, E. (2026) “Il ‘discorso del patibolo’ tra secolo dei Lumi e Controrivoluzione. Pena, isolamento ed evasione in Claude-Nicolas Ledoux e Jean-Jacques Lequeu”, in Belli, G. Mangone, F. Santini, F. (eds.) Luguori, Napoli, pp. 175-186.

Boeri, E. Cardani, L. Pilotti, M. Sessa, R. (eds.) (2025) “Places, Spaces and Thresholds of the ‘Other’”, Journal of Architecture Design and History, issue no. 4, July.

Boeri, E. (2024) "Luigi Carlo Daneri (1900-1972). Abitare il paesaggio", SilvanaEditoriale, Biblioteca d'architettura, Cinisello Balsamo.

Boeri, E. (2022) “Reading the East: From the Enlightenment to the Utopic Projects of the Revolutionary Architects”, in Steele, J. Geoga, M. (eds.) The Allure of the Ancient. Reception of the Ancient Middle East, ca. 1600-1800, Brill, Leiden-Boston, pp. 102-144.

Boeri, E. (2022) “Rise and Fall of a Draftsman: A Biographic Reading of the Lequeu legacy at the National Library of France”, in Goffi, F. (ed.) The Routledge Companion to Architectural Drawings and Models. From Translating to Archiving Collecting and Displaying, Routledge, London-New York, pp. 430-444.

Boeri, E. (2018) "Jean-Jacques Lequeu: un atlas des mémoires (Jean-Jacques Lequeu: an atlas of memories)", Éditions des Cendres, Paris. Review by Anthony Vidler in Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians (2019) 78 (4): 492–495.

Boeri, E. (2018) “L’invention du territoire entre artifice et réalité (The invention of territory between artifice and reality)”, in Barridon, L. Garric, J.-P., Guédron, M. (eds.) Jean-Jacques Lequeu (1757-1826). Bâtisseur de fantasme (Jean-Jacques Lequeu (1757-1826). Builder of fantasies), Bibliothèque nationale de France/Éditions Norma, Paris, pp. 88-109.

Grants, awards and Honours

2020-2021 | Postdoctoral Fellowship | École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland | Research project: “Swiss architects in Saint Petersburg: technology transfer and culture shift”, co-directed by Prof. Nicola Braghieri (EPFL) and Prof. Elena Simonato (UNIL). "Programme Collaborative Research on Science and Society (CROSS)" funded project

2018-2020 | Postdoctoral Fellowship | Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, Paris, France Research project: “Milan and Ticino (1796-1848). Shaping the Spatiality of a European Capital”, co-directed by Prof. Jean-Philippe Garric (Paris 1) and Letizia Tedeschi (Accademia di Architettura di Mendrisio), funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF Synergy Project no. 177286)

2020 - Opler Grant for Emerging Scholars 2020, funded by the Society of Architectural Historians (SAH, USA)
2018 - "Prix d'aide à la publication académique” | Award for the publication of a scholarly volume funded by the Centre Nationale du Livre (CNL), Paris (France)

Community Service

In terms of institutional leadership and service, I have been a member of the DABC PhD Board since 2021 and responsible for the DABC PhD training programme since 2022. Since 2023, I have served on the Research Board of the UNESCO Chair (Mantova Campus, Politecnico di Milano) on Architectural Preservation and Planning in World Heritage Cities and as DABC departmental delegate for Libraries. I was Editorial Coordinator at the Mantova Campus (2023-2025), I sit on the Organisational Board of the Mantovarchitettura Festival (since 2023), and I have been ABC departmental delegate for Cultural Events (2022-2025, with Prof. R. Dulio).

Editorial roles
2023-today | Director, JADH - Journal of Architectural Design and History (peer reviewed, open access | https://www.adh.journal.mantova.polimi.it)
2020-2024 | Editorial Board member, Studi e Ricerche di Storia dell’Architettura (peer reviewed, open access)