PhD Candidate, History and Theory of Architecture, Princeton SoA
MA, History and Theory of Architecture, Princeton SoA
MSc Architecture, Urbanism and Building Sciences, TU Delft, NL
BArch (Licence), ENSA de Paris La Villette, FR
Iason Stathatos is a doctoral candidate in the History and Theory of Architecture at Princeton University and an Onassis Foundation fellow. He is also pursuing a Graduate Certificate in History of Science from the Department of History at Princeton University.
Stathatos' dissertation offers a history of the intertwined relationship between architecture and archaeology in the context of various forms of colonization during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Building on the existing literature that links archaeological practices with colonialist domination, the project argues that architects and engineers were not only deeply committed in archaeological research in various quasi- or fully colonized territories in the Eastern Mediterranean, Northern Africa and the Americas; they also brought cutting-edge archaeological media technologies back to the Western metropolis, turning colonial archaeology into an important, yet unacknowledged agent of modernization. Situated at the intersection of the history of architecture, history of science, media studies, postcolonial studies and art history, Stathatos' research aspires to expand the role of antiquity and colonial archaeological fieldwork within the Modern, addressing, therefore, an important historiographic lacuna.
Through his exhibition design and curatorial work, Stathatos seeks to engage a broader audience with scholarly work. Between 2016 and 2020, he worked extensively with the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (Rotterdam) on various cultural and mixed-use landmark projects in London, Brussels, Berlin, Paris, Kuwait City, and elsewhere. In 2022, he worked with Diller Scofidio + Renfro (NYC) as the Archaeology and Architecture Coordinator for the expansion of the Greek National Archaeological Museum. Instances of his work have been exhibited internationally at the 14th and the 16th Venice Biennale of Architecture, and his work “High-tech Antiquity” is now on view at Princeton’s Hellenic Studies Center.
In addition to earning a Master of Arts in Architecture from Princeton University in 2023, Stathatos hold a bachelor’s degree in architecture (Licence) from the École Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture de Paris-La Villette and a Masters in Architecture, Urbanism and Building Sciences (Specialization Explore Lab) from the Delft University of Technology, where he graduated cum laude in 2016. He was named among the “world’s brightest new talents” for the year 2018 by Wallpaper Magazine, and in 2014, he was awarded the Prix W by the Wilmotte Foundation. Since January 2022, he has been coordinating Princeton University’s Program in Media and Modernity.
