Boeri Elisa

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

2016 | Joint PhD in History of Art and History of Architecture with First Class Honors and Congratulations of the Jury. Université Panthéon-Sorbonne, Paris I (France) and Università di Venezia IUAV, Venice (Italy).
Thesis title: “Architecture, Theories and Representation at the time of the French Revolution. The Architecture Civile (Civil Architecture) drawings by Jean-Jacques Lequeu (1757-1826) at the French National Library”. PhD Supervisor: Prof. Jean-Philippe Garric and Prof. Federico Bucci

2017-2019 | Master MABIC - "Management of Heritage and Cultural Institutions" School of Management, Politecnico di Milano, Italy

2009-2012 | MA in Architettura, Facoltà di Architettura Civile, Politecnico di Milano, Italy
2006-2009 | BA in Architettura, Facoltà di Architettura Civile, Politecnico di Milano, Italy

Research

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, Elisa, “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., Luguori, Napoli 2026, pp. 175-186.

BOERI, Elisa, CARDANI, Luca, PILOTTI, Michela, SESSA, Rosa (edited by), “Places, Spaces and Thresholds of the ‘Other’”, Journal of Architecture Design and History, issue no. 4, July 2025 (open access)

BOERI, Elisa, Luigi Carlo Daneri (1900-1972). Abitare il paesaggio, SilvanaEditoriale, “Biblioteca d'architettura”, Cinisello Balsamo 2024.

BOERI, Elisa, “Reading the East: From the Enlightenment to the Utopic Projects of the Revolutionary Architects”, in STEELE, J., GEOGA, M., edited by, The Allure of the Ancient. Reception of the Ancient Middle East, ca. 1600-1800, Brill, Leiden-Boston 2022, pp. 102-144.

BOERI, Elisa, “Rise and Fall of a Draftsman: A Biographic Reading of the Lequeu legacy at the National Library of France”, in GOFFI, Federica, edited by, The Routledge Companion to Architectural Drawings and Models. From Translating to Archiving Collecting and Displaying, Routledge, London-New York 2022, pp. 430-444.

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

BOERI, Elisa, “L’invention du territoire entre artifice et réalité (The invention of territory between artifice and reality)”, in BARRIDON, L. GARRIC, J.-P., GUÉDRON, M., edited by, Jean-Jacques Lequeu (1757-1826). Bâtisseur de fantasme (Jean-Jacques Lequeu (1757-1826). Builder of fantasies), Bibliothèque nationale de France/Éditions Norma, Paris 2018, 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)