16/08/2024
Professor Donatella Calabi Won the International Planning History Society (IPHS) 2024 Sir Peter Hall Award for Lifetime Achievement in Planning History
Citation: "Professor Donatella Calabi has made an outstanding worldwide contribution to town planning and urban history, not only regarding the city of Venice and Italy but also the European context and the cultural exchanges between cities.
Donatella was born in São Paulo in 1943 to Italian parents. She studied architecture at the Università IUAV di Venezia in 1962 after the family moved to Venice. Her father was an architect and following his death in 1964, Donatella and her husband took over his design studio and carried on his practice. In 1971, she started teaching at the IUAV, holding the position of Professor of Town Planning and Urban History for almost four decades. She also served as Vice-Chancellor of the university from 2009 until 2013.
Coming under the influence of her colleague Manfredo Tafuri, her interests have moved between the history of town planning in the 19th and 20th centuries and the modern history of the European city with a particular focus on market areas, buildings, minorities and communities.
She has published more than 20 books, written 170 journal articles and book chapters, and presented 250 conference papers. Her writings have been published in English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Greek, Hebrew, and Japanese as well as Italian. Her books include Ghetto de Venise. 500 ans et des poussières (2023), Venice, the Jews and Europe (2016), Built city, designed city, virtual city: the museum of the city (2013), The market and the city (2004), and Marcel Poëte et le Paris des années vingt (1998). Her book Acqua e Cibo a Venezia (2015) won the inaugural IPHS Koos Bosma book prize for planning history innovation in 2016.
Donatella Calabi has been a visiting professor at several universities including the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris, KU Leuven, the University of Leicester and in the USA at Duke University, MIT and Harvard University. She is a former president of the European Society of Urban Historians, and founder and honorary president of the Italian Society of Urban History. She has been involved in the editorial board of several scientific journals, including Planning Perspectives. Donatella has occupied many other positions as a research leader, committee member, exhibition curator and knowledge expert.
Apart from her demonstrable scholarship of international significance and impact, Donatella Calabi is actively engaged in public and civil society initiatives dealing with the safeguarding of Venetian urban heritage and the city’s town planning and regeneration. She brilliantly fulfils the requirements of the Sir Peter Hall Award in making a vital career contribution to advancing planning history beyond the English-speaking community."
Congratulations Professor Donatella Calabi!
