Updated 2/7/23
EDUCATION
Yale University, New Haven, CT
PhD in Architecture, History and Theory track, Expected 2024
Dissertation title: “Seeing Like an Architect: History as a Source of Invention, 1945-1990.” The dissertation examines the relationship between architecture history and design by highlighting the tension between architects’ renewed interest in history during the decades following modernism and the contemporaneous effort by historians to emancipate history from the burden of serving practice.
Supervisor: Joan Ockman
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA
Master of Science in Architecture Studies, Architectural Design track, 2017
Thesis title: "Boullée’s Forgotten Fountain: The Redesign of the Bibliothèque du Roi, 1785”
Advisors: Mark Goulthorpe & Mark Jarzombek
The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, New York, NY
Bachelor of Architecture, minor in History & Society, 2015
TEACHING
Yale School of Architecture
• Discussion section leader and administrative assistant, “Globalization Space: International Infrastructure and Extrastatecraft” (UG), Spring 2022
• Teaching fellow, “Senior Research Colloquium” (UG; thesis preparation), Fall 2021
• Discussion section leader, “Architecture Theory from 1750 to the Present” (G), Spring 2021
• Teaching fellow, “Senior Design Studio” (UG), Fall 2020
MIT Department of Architecture
• Instructor, “Drawing Architecture: Theory, Concept, Practice” (UG/G), Spring 2018
• Instructor, “Architecture Design Studio II” (UG), Spring 2018
• Instructor, “Introduction to Architecture Design” (UG), Winter 2018
• Instructor, “Architecture Design Foundations” (UG), Fall 2017
• Teaching Assistant, “Preparation for MArch Thesis” (G), Spring 2017
• Teaching Assistant, “Architecture Design Option Studio: Konsult: On Desert-Formation and Wastescapes” (G), Spring 2017
• Teaching Assistant, “Architecture Design Studio II” (UG), Spring 2016
• Teaching Assistant, “Architecture Design Core Studio I” (G), Fall 2016
PUBLICATIONS
• N. Pacula. “The House on Belle Isle and Its Appearance in Picturesque Media, 1774-1805.” Behind the Scenes of Object-Based Art Histories. Eds. Carl Schmitz and Tracee Ng. Vernon Press. Forthcoming. Peer-reviewed.
• N. Pacula. “True, False, Fictive: Walid Raad’s Atlas Group Project and The Aesthetics of History, 1989-2004.” The Aestheticization of History: The Visual Arts Series. Ed. Nancy Bookhart. Vernon Press. Forthcoming. Peer-reviewed.
• N. Pacula. “What’s in a Name? Etienne-Louis Boullée’s Redesign of the Bibliothèque du Roi, 1780-88.” Journal of Architectural Education (1984-), Vol. 75, No. 2. pp. 321-324. 2021. Peer-reviewed.
• N. Pacula. “Pier Vittorio Aureli’s Architecture of Abstraction.” Drawing Matter. https://drawingmatter.org/pier-vittorio-aurelis-architecture-of-abstraction. 2021.
• N. Pacula. “A Prolegomenon to Image-Based Historiography: Forensic Architecture’s Spatiotemporal Model and the Split-Second Event.” Proceedings of the ConCave PhD Symposium: Divergence in Architectural Research. Eds. Hayri Dortdivanlioglu and Marisabel Marratt. pp. 271-279. Peer-reviewed.
• N. Pacula. “Locating Adolf Loos’s House for Josephine Baker.” Sequitur, Vol. 3, Iss. 2: Oops!. https://www.bu.edu/sequitur/2017/05/01/locating-adolf-looss-house-for-josephine-baker/. 2017
• N. Pacula. “(De)racinate: The Workers’ House at the Place de la Bastille, Paris.” Open City: Existential Urbanity, Ed. Diane Lewis. Charta. pp. 354-359. 2015
CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS & INVITED LECTURES
• “‘Everything I’ve Ever Known Has Been a Lie:’ Walid Raad/The Atlas Group and the Aesthetics of History,” Historical Fictions Research Network Annual Conference. Virtual program. 2021
• “Fragile Architecture: Seventeenth-Century Quadratura Painting and the Non-Functional Image,” 109th College Art Association Annual Conference. Virtual program. 2021
• “A Prolegomenon to Image-Based Historiography: Forensic Architecture’s Spatiotemporal Model and the Split-Second Event,” PhD Symposium: Divergence in Architectural Research. Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA. 2020
• “Between Being and Becoming: Etienne-Louis Boullée’s Unbuilt Redesign of the Bibliothèque du Roi, 1780-88,” Fall 2019 Lecture Series. University of Florida College of Design, Construction and Planning, Gainesville, FL. 2019
• “Design Practice and Architectural History: Intersecting Traditions?” Graduate Student Roundtable, Society of Architectural Historians 70th Annual International Conference. Co-organizer and panelist. Glasgow, Scotland. 2017
• “A Brief History of the Lodgepole Pine Tree,” New England Graduate Media Symposium, Unsettling: Reexaminations of Home. Emerson College, Boston, MA. 2017
• “Staging: La Commedia Dell’arte,” Book Launch and Symposium for Open City: Existential Urbanity. Panelist. Museum of Modern Art. New York, NY. 2015
PROFESSIONAL SERVICE
Podcast creator, “The PhD Podcast Project,” Yale University Office of Career Strategy, 2021-23
Lecture series organizer, “Architecture Forum,” Yale University, 2019-20
• Funding: Dean’s Fund for Research Workshops, Seminars, and Colloquia
Lecture series organizer, “PhD Dialogues,” Yale School of Architecture, 2019-20
• Funding: Dean’s Fund for Research Workshops, Seminars, and Colloquia
UNIVERSITY SERVICE
Graduate Admissions Committee, MIT Department of Architecture, 2018
Admissions Associate, Cooper Union, 2015-16
Dean Search Committee, Cooper Union School of Architecture, 2013-15
Undergraduate Admissions Committee, Cooper Union School of Architecture, 2013-15
Student Council, Cooper Union School of Architecture, 2012-15
• Administrative Chair; Faculty-Student Senate Chair; Humanities Administrative Committee
EXHIBITIONS & PERFORMANCES
Design & Curation
• Media + Modes: Architecture and Design Undergraduate Student Work Exhibit. MIT Rotch Library Gallery, Cambridge, MA. 2018
Group Exhibitions
• “A Brief History of the Lodgepole Pine Tree,” New England Graduate Media Symposium, Unsettling: Reexaminations of Home. Emerson College, Boston, MA. 2017
• Menschel Fellows Exhibition. The Cooper Union, New York, NY. 2015
• End of Year Show. The Cooper Union, New York, NY. Annual, 2011-15
AWARDS & HONORS
Conference Travel Fund, Yale University, 2020
Full Tuition Graduate Fellowship, Yale University, 2018
Louis C. Rosenburg Travel Fellowship, MIT, 2016
Full Tuition Scholarship, MIT, 2015
Alpha Rho Chi Bronze Medal, National Professional Fraternity for Architecture, 2015
Office of Alumni Affairs Award for Outstanding Service to the School, Cooper Union, 2015
William Cooper Mack Thesis Fellowship, Cooper Union, 2014
Sean F. Mellon Memorial Scholarship, Society of American Registered Architects, 2014
Benjamin Menschel Fellowship, Cooper Union, 2014
John Q. Hejduk Scholarship, Cooper Union, 2013; 2014
Full Tuition Scholarship, Cooper Union, 2010
FUNDED RESEARCH
Archival Research
• Bibliothèque Nationale, Department of Prints and Photographs. Paris, France, 2016
Funding: Louis C. Rosenburg Travel Fellowship, MIT
Field Research
• United Nations Relief and Works Agency. Shatila Camp, Beirut, Lebanon, 2015
Funding: William Cooper Mack Thesis Fellowship, Cooper Union
• Various sites along the Mississippi River. Minneapolis, MN to New Orleans, LA. 2014
Funding: Benjamin Menschel Fellowship, Cooper Union