Ruo Jia

Ruo Jia is an architect/artist/theorist/historian/educator based in New York City.

She is the founder and director of the research-based practice IfWorks, exploring art/architecture possibilities individually Or collectively. Currently a Visiting Assistant Professor at the School of Architecture at Pratt Institute, she has also taught at Harvard, CUNY, Columbia, and Princeton.

Her research focuses on constructing a decolonizing postmodernist materialist space through the interweaving of “Chinese Experimental Architecture” and “French Poststructuralist Theory,” which expands to envisioning the possibilities of Asian Feminist Architecture, and Posthumanist Sustainability. Her works have been published with The Journal of Architecture, Representations, Log, Brooklyn Rail among others.

She has a Ph.D. in Architectural History and Theory from Princeton University School of Architecture with an interdisciplinary humanities certificate from Media+Modernity, a M.Arch.II from Harvard University Graduate School of Design, and a M.Arch. and a B.Arch. from Southeast University School of Architecture.

Ph.D., Princeton University School of Architecture, 2022
M.A., Princeton University School of Architecture, 2018
M. Arch. II, Harvard University Graduate School of Design, 2015
M. Arch., Southeast University School of Architecture, 2013
B. Arch., Southeast University School of Architecture, 2011

Selected Publication

• Peer-reviewed

– Jia, Ruo. Different Shades of the Concrete: Chinese Experimental Architecture Or French Poststructuralist Theory (book manuscript in preparation).

– Jia, Ruo.不同色度的具体：中国实验建筑或法国后结构理论[Different Shades of the Concrete: Chinese Experimental Architecture Or French Poststructuralist Theory] (book manuscript in preparation).

– Jia, Ruo. “Cloud as an Alternative Architecture.” Representations (2024 Spring): 117-142.

– Jia, Ruo. “The Architecturing of Modern Love and the Architecturing of Modern Architecture: Revisiting ‘Huiyin Lin,’ ” The Journal of Architecture (April 29th 2024): 1-15. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13602365.2024.2339305

– Jia, Ruo. “Moving towards a Concrete Type through Collective Body Memory,” Transposed Memory: Visual Sites of National Recollection in the 20th and 21st century East Asia. Eds. Alison J. Miller and Eunyoung Park (Brill, 2024), 126-143.

– Jia, Ruo. “Cloud as Alternative Architecture.” 109th ACSA Conference Proceedings, 2023, 323-330, https://www.acsa-arch.org/chapter/cloud-as-an-alternative-architecture/.

– Jia, Ruo. “瓦勒里欧·奥尔格里亚蒂的‘先将来时’建筑”[Valerio Olgiati’s Architecture of the Future Anterior]. Time+ Architecture, vol. 4 (2022): 154-158.

– Jia, Ruo. “新的地域主义或是情节地域主义和布景建筑的回潮？——从MoMA中国建筑展谈起” [A New Sustainability or the Return of Sentimental Regionalism and Scenographic Architecture?—Thoughts Prompted by MoMA’s Chinese Architecture Exhibition]. The Architect, no. 220 (Dec. 2022):107-111.

– Jia, Ruo. “Unfolding Borders and Typologies.”(Dec. 2nd, 2022) koozArch, https://www.koozarch.com/essays/unfolding-borders-and-typologies.

• Non Peer-reviewed

– Jia, Ruo. ed. Yeah, they were All Yellow: Asian Feminist Architectural Possibilities, E-flux (under preparation)

– Jia, Ruo. “Power of the Silence: Towards a Feminist Architecture,” E-flux (under preparation).

– Jia, Ruo. “Dear Unformed Desire…” Brooklyn Rail (Dec. 2022-Jan. 2023), https://brooklynrail.org/2023/12/art_books/Flurin-Bisig-Unformed-Desire.

– Jia, Ruo. Su Chang. “Fishing.” Urban Cosmologies: 9th Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism/Architecture. UABB, Sept. 2022, 302-303.

– Jia, Ruo. “Post-Trauma,“ Artishock Revista (28 July 2022), https://artishockrevista.com/2022/07/28/post-trauma/

– Jia, Ruo. “Post-Trauma,“ Artishock Revista, trans. Alejandra Villasmil (27 July 2022), https://artishockrevista.com/2022/07/27/maria-gabler-trama-proxyco/

– Jia, Ruo. “Riding the Reformative Wave of Postmodern Theory.” In Radical Pedagogy, edited by Beatriz Colomina, Ignacio G. Galan, Evangelos Kotsioris and Anna-Maria Meister, 150-152. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2022.

– Jia, Ruo. “Concrete Material as Chinese Architectural Reformation.” Log 51 (2021): 145-152.

– Jia, Ruo. “Theory Backfires: Shu Wang’s Post-Structuralist Alternative and a Fictionalized China.” Pidgin 25 (April 2019): 140-165.

Selected Projects

• “Feminist Spatial Practices”

   Online Platform and Community Building

• “Yeah, they were All Yellow: Asian Feminist Architectural Possibilities”

   Exhibition Design

• “Hystera”

   Multi-media Installation

• “Becoming Lo Ting/Fishing”

   The 9th Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism/Architecture

   Architectural Installation

• “OrLand”

   Instagram-based experiment

• “30lbs of Small Bags of Classic Lays Chips”

   Architectural-sculptural installation