Alessandro Melis

Alessandro Melis, RIBA ARB AOU, is a professor of architecture innovation at the University of Portsmouth and the Director of the Cluster for Sustainable Cities in the UK. In 2019, he was appointed by the Italian Minister of Cultural Heritage (MIBAC) as the curator of the Italian Pavilion at the 17th International Biennale of Architecture in Venice 2020. Previously, at the University of Auckland, he was the head of the technology area and director of postgraduate engagement. In the period 2010-2013 he has been the Director of Urban City Lab at the university of Applied Arts Vienna (Die Angewandte) and visiting professor in Germany (Anhalt University, Dessau). He holds a PhD in architecture design from the University of Florence. He has been an honorary fellow at the Edinburgh School of Architecture. He has also been invited as a keynote speaker at the China Academy of Art, the MoMA New York, the University of Cambridge, TED, the Italian Institute of Culture in London, and the UNESCO Headquarters in Paris. In 1996, he founded Heliopolis 21, a multi-awarded architecture practice based in Italy, Germany, and the UK. The recognition of Alessandro’s research is corroborated by a record of publications and by as many citations. His work was the object of several exhibitions and of a recent monograph (Rome, 2020) edited by Francesco Fallacara Chirico, titled “Alessandro Melis, Utopic Real World.”