Emilio Distretti is a London-based researcher, writer and educator at the Royal College of Art’s School of Architecture. His work brings together writing, teaching, and collaborative practice to examine the afterlives of colonial materialities and architecture through the lenses of critical preservation, spatial justice, and transnational struggles for reparations. He collaborates with the art and architecture collective Decolonizing Architecture Art Research (DAAR), with whom he is co-authoring the forthcoming book Entity of Decolonization: The Afterlives of Colonial–Fascist Architecture (Park Books, 2027).
Distretti holds a Ph.D. in Aesthetics and the Politics of Representation from the University of Portsmouth (United Kingdom). Before joining the Royal College of Art, he was a postdoctoral researcher in urban studies at the University of Basel (Switzerland) and directed the Urban Studies and Spatial Practices programme at Al-Quds Bard College in Abu Dis, Palestine. His research and essays have been published in journals and edited volumes including Cabinet, e-flux Architecture, The Journal of Architecture, Future Anterior, and Antipode: A Journal of Radical Geography.
