Ettore Santi

Ettore Santi is a Postdoctoral Research Associate and incoming Assistant Professor with a joint appointment in the School of Architecture and in the Department of Cultures, Societies, and Global Studies. Ettore’s scholarship bridges design research with debates in rural geography, agrarian political ecology, and the environmental humanities.

His current book project “Designing a Land Revolution: The Corporate Reinvention of China’s Rural Environment” offers an ethnographic account of how architects, planners, and state experts are redesigning China’s rural villages into spaces for agribusiness food extraction and ecotourism. This project received support from the Mellon Foundation and the Luce Foundation at the American Council of Learned Societies, the Mellon Foundation at the Social Sciences Research Council, the Graham Foundation, and China’s National Science Foundation.

Ettore’s design pedagogy addresses socioecological challenges emerging in rural areas of the United States and globally. He designed and taught courses in partnership with community groups in rural California and New England, taking over issues related to agribusiness expansion, food extraction, water scarcity, Indigenous politics, seasonal immigrant farm labor, and rural homelessness.

Ettore holds a Ph.D. in Architectural History and Theory from UC Berkeley, a M.Arch from Tongji University of Shanghai and a M.Arch from Polytechnic University of Milan. He has worked as a designer, consultant, curator, and educator in China, Italy, and the United States.