Despina Stratigakos
Despina Stratigakos is an architectural historian and an internationally recognized scholar of diversity and equity in architecture. Stratigakos was co-creator of Architect Barbie, released by Mattel in 2011 to inspire young girls to make their mark on a profession in which women remain vastly underrepresented. The project helped shape the debate on gender equity in architecture.
Her 2020 book, Hitler’s Northern Utopia: Building the New Order in Occupied Norway, sets forth the story of how Nazi architects and planners envisioned and began to build a model “Aryan” society in Norway during World War II. Drawing on diaries, photographs, maps and newspapers to chronicle how Nazi occupiers hoped to transform the built environment of Norway, the book offers a view of how architecture can be used for oppression and political ends.
Her other books, including A Women’s Berlin: Building the Modern City (2008), Hitler at Home (2015), and Where Are the Women Architects? (2016), explore the intersections of power and architecture. She has published extensively on barriers to equity and diversity in the building professions, including stereotypical representations of architects in history books, the lack of diversity among elite architecture prize winners, and the absence of female architects and architects of color in Hollywood films.
At the University at Buffalo, Professor has served as Vice Provost for Inclusive Excellence from 2018-22, focusing on UB’s efforts to create a culture of inclusive excellence and enhance diversity, equity and inclusion across the campus community. An engaged scholar, Professor Stratigakos participated on Buffalo’s municipal Diversity in Architecture taskforce and was a founding member of the Architecture and Design Academy, an initiative of the Buffalo Public Schools to encourage students from diverse socio-economic backgrounds to pursue degrees in architecture.
Professor Stratigakos received her Ph.D. from Bryn Mawr College and taught at Harvard University and the University of Michigan before joining UB’s Department of Architecture in 2007.