I am an architectural historian and classical archaeologist. My research addresses the broader social, economic and cultural conditions underpinning the production of ancient art, architecture and urbanism. I focus on the art and architecture of the Hellenistic and Roman periods and undertake to understand the ways in which the cultural interaction between Greeks and Romans informed their artistic production as well as the shaping of their built environment.
My first two monographs and an edited volume are concerned with the architecture and art of late Republican and early Imperial Italy. Designing for Luxury on the Bay of Naples (OUP 2014) focused on five early Roman luxury villas to reconstruct the physical, social, and cultural factors that informed architects’ design decisions. In Shaping Roman Landscape (Getty 2023), I take up questions of the architectural analysis of luxury villas in the realm of art historical discourses to broaden and deepen rigid understandings of “nature” and “landscape representation” that have dominated the fields of art history and classical archaeology. In the edited volume The Villa of the Papyri at Herculaneum (De Gruyter 2010), I invited specialists in papyrology, archaeology, art, and architecture to discuss the archaeology and reception of this important site and presented a VR model of this villa as a research tool for understanding and analyzing its extant remains.
My current research focuses on the art, architecture, and archaeology of late Hellenistic and Roman Greece and Asia Minor. I work on a book project on the urban growth of late Hellenistic and Roman Delos, addressing the relationship between economic and social change, urban growth and physical infrastructure. In the context of this project, I forged a collaboration between Greek and French institutions to conduct an underwater fieldwork survey around Delos and Rheneia so as to clarify the harbor infrastructure of the Delian emporium, locate shipwrecks and investigate the maritime routes around the island. I also collaborated on an underwater survey around the island of Levitha in the central Aegean Sea — the first to focus on the central Aegean to locate shipwrecks in the vicinity of these islands as a means of documenting the maritime connections of ancient Greece with Asia Minor. I currently collaborate with the University of Ankara for the excavation and study of the bouleuterion at Teos and prepare an edited volume that brings together archaeologists working in Greece and Asia Minor to discuss Hermogenes and Hellenistic-Roman Temple Building (University of Wisconsin Press, in progress).
As an expert of ancient architecture, I systematically promote conversations across the distinct fields of archaeology and architecture. My most recent edited volume Looking at the City (Melissa 2023) tackles the methodological approaches of architects and archaeologists in the study of ancient Greek cities. My work on the ancient world is entwined with contemporary discussions about ecology and sustainability in the fields of architecture and urban planning. I organized and co-led the Delos Network, investigating the history and legacy of the Delos symposia (1963-75) that placed ancient Greek cities in the context of discussions about the future of urban planning during the 1960s and 1970s (The Delos Symposia and Doxiadis, Lars Müller 2024).
I employ the conceptual frameworks of contemporary culture, art and architectural practices to address issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Together with David Gissen and Jennifer Stager, we created for the 2021 Biennale of Architecture in Venice the research installation An Archaeology of Disability, which explores what it means to reconstruct lost elements of the Acropolis through the lens of human impairment (now touring in Greece).
I have a multidisciplinary training in architectural design (Athens), history and theory of architecture (Harvard), and classical archaeology (Oxford). I have been a Fellow at Freie Universität in Berlin (TOPOI), New York University (ISAW), the University of Cologne (Humboldt Stipendium), the Getty Research Institute (Visiting Scholar), the Harvard Center for Hellenic Studies, the National Hellenic Research Foundation (Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowship) and a member of the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study (Edwin C. and Elizabeth A. Whitehead Fellow).
Mantha Zarmakoupi 