Dr Gian Luca Amadei
- Senior Tutor (Research)
- Information Experience Design MA
Gian Luca is an architectural historian, researcher and curator. His interests intersect between architecture history, urban planning, sociology and cultural context.
Gian Luca contributes to the Information Experience Design MA programme through the Future Cities Field Collective, which is interrogating possible futures of the urban context in terms of designed experiences. Gian Luca is also the academic lead for the Information Experience Design Festival, which is the yearly programme of public events featuring students' work, performances and experiences.
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Research interests
Gian Luca’s approach to teaching is rooted in experiential learning methodologies and adopts urban walks, and explorations of the built environment, to stimulate the generation of new creative ideas, concepts and processes.
Practice
Gian Luca has a BA in Interior Design (University for the Creative Arts) and an MSc in Architecture History and Theory (The Bartlett / University College London). Gian Luca completed his PhD at the University of Kent / School of Architecture with the research thesis “The Evolving Paradigm of the Victorian Cemeteries: Their emergence and contribution to London's urban growth since 1833”. During the academic year 2018-19 Gian Luca was also a visiting researcher at the Department of Sociology / University of York.
Between 2007 and 2012 he was the Product Editor for Blueprint magazine. Later, between 2013-18 Gian Luca was a programme manager for the design at the British Council and worked on international cultural programmes across Europe and Africa. Gian Luca is an advocate of life-long learning and has been teaching as a visiting lecturer at University of Kent in Canterbury (School of Architecture), University of Nottingham (School of Architecture), University for the Creative Arts (UCA) and Kingston University.
Research funding
Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) grant for doctoral research (2009–12)
Adam Mickiewicz Institute (Poland) grant (2007–09) to research and produce the publication Discovering Women in Polish Design: Interviews & Conversations
British Council Travel Grant (UK/Poland Season 2025 / Imagining Future Collaborations).
Current and recent projects
Gian Luca is currently working on a post-doctoral research project titled “Cremation Stories” investigating the meanings and experiential aspects of modern cremation through spatial design and memorialisation rituals.
Publications, exhibitions, other outcomes
Gian Luca is the author of the books: Discovering Women in Polish Design (Adam Mickiewicz Institute 2009) and Victorian Cemeteries and the Suburbs of London (Routledge 2021).
In 2021 Gian Luca co-initiated with Dr Agnieszka Jacobson-Cielecka and Dario Lombardi the editorial and curatorial project titled Looking Through Objects: Women in Contemporary Polish Design. The initiative's main project partner is the National Museum in Gdańsk. The project is co-financed by the Polish Minister of Culture and National Heritage under the Inspiring Culture programme. The Looking Through Objects exhibition was showcased in 2022 at the Estonian Museum of Applied Arts and Design in Tallinn, and in 2023 at the NOMUS New Art Museum in Gdańsk, Poland.