Pep Avilés
- Associate Professor of Architecture
- Stuckeman Career Development Professorship in Design
331 Stuckeman
- Email lua57@psu.edu
- Phone 814-863-0972
- Pronouns he/him
![Pep Avilés](https://arts.psu.edu/assets/uploads/directoryImages/_480x480_crop_center-center_80_none/PepAviles-1.png)
Biography
Pep Avilés is a historian, architect, and educator whose academic research explores the impact media had in modern architecture after World War II. His work concentrates in the role that architecture images played in the redefinition of the concept of ornament in late modernity. His current book project is tentatively titled "Gaudí’s Afterlives: Image, Historiography, and Postwar Architecture."
Avilés' work represents a pedagogical and academic effort opening new paths for architectural research. This preoccupation has translated into an interdisciplinary and methodological approach to critically analyze, understand, and effectively respond to contemporary culture. Avilés founded in 2018 the journal "Faktur: Documents and Architecture," a journal publishing the work of emerging scholars addressing global issues from a local perspective. More recently, he has concentrated on the environmental histories emerging at the Anthracite Region in PA, and the impacts of the modern culture of extraction.
Avilés taught previously at Columbia University and The Cooper Union. His work has been sponsored by the Canadian Center for Architecture, the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, and the Getty Research Center, among other institutions and has been exhibited at the Venice Architecture Biennale (2014), and the Oslo Architecture Triennale (2019). His essays have been published in journals such as the "Getty Research Journal," "Thresholds," and "Footprint," and in edited volumes such as "Dust and Data: Traces of the Bauhaus Across 100 Years" (Ines Weizman ed., 2019), and "Climates: Architecture and the Planet Imaginary" (James Graham, et. alt., eds., 2016).
Avilés is the editor of the Spanish edition of Siegfried Ebeling’s 1926 publication "Der Raum als Membran," (2015). He is also cofounder of the experimental architectural platform The Fautory.
Collected Works
![Article featuring Sigfried Ebeling's cover featuring black, yellow, and red geometric artwork, with "Der Raum Als Membran," black slab sans-serif text.](https://arts.psu.edu/assets/uploads/work/_860xAUTO_fit_center-center_80_none/pep_aviles_pb_climatic_imaginaries_article_2.jpg)
![Close-up of mixed-media project of a miniature barren desert landscape with dried foliage; white smoke emanates from underneath the wood structure.](https://arts.psu.edu/assets/uploads/work/_860xAUTO_fit_center-center_80_none/pep-aviles-avance_maqueta_centralia_02.jpg)
![Sample of Pep Avilés's founded journal "Faktur: Documents and Architecture." Page features photo samples of an outdoor cement pavillion with circular skylights. The second embedded photo is of a winding hallway.](https://arts.psu.edu/assets/uploads/work/_860xAUTO_fit_center-center_80_none/pep-aviles-faktur-portada-final-af-visualizacion_lr_page_1.jpg)
![Mixed-media project of a miniature barren desert landscape with dried foliage and a wood structure against a black and grey background.](https://arts.psu.edu/assets/uploads/work/_860xAUTO_fit_center-center_80_none/pep-aviles-img_e6826.jpg)
![Written article accompanied by a few samples of Soviet-era posters.](https://arts.psu.edu/assets/uploads/work/_860xAUTO_fit_center-center_80_none/pep-aviles-pa_dust_and_data_02.jpg)
![Photographic samples of Marcel Breuer's architectural interior design of office and living spaces from the 1920s–40s.](https://arts.psu.edu/assets/uploads/work/_860xAUTO_fit_center-center_80_none/pep-aviles-pa_thresholds_02.jpg)
![Photo of a desert landscape with stacked cement blocks in the middle during the late afternoon. A single-engine airplane makes a landing in the background, while a stray cat walks toward the camera in the foreground.](https://arts.psu.edu/assets/uploads/work/_860xAUTO_fit_center-center_80_none/pep-aviles-res_nullius_ip_03_red.jpg)