Sofia Nannini Receives Research Support Grant

Sofia Nannini, assistant professor, Department of Architecture and Design, Politecnico di Torino, was awarded a Research Support Grant by the Paul Mellon Centre (PMC) in 2024. Below, Sofia details the research activities she was able to undertake as a result of the award:

In Spring 2024 a Research Support Grant from the PMC supported my travelling to the United Kingdom to conduct research for my ongoing book project tentatively entitled “The Mechanization of Life: An Architectural History of Intensive Animal Farming”. This book will trace the history of how Western societies have designed, developed and built architecture for animal farming since the nineteenth century. The project explores the role of architects, engineers and designers in the making of spaces for livestock, with a focus on the buildings for cattle, pigs and poultry. The project problematises the role of architectural design for the growth and production of other species, and the systematisation of violence through technology and spatial strategies of control. For this research, the complex industrial phenomenon of factory farming is tackled through the study of the abstract models of farming systems circulated in print since the nineteenth century. I am particularly interested in the zootechnical handbooks on livestock economy, management and architecture which generated typologies and layouts that spread globally.

With the generous support of PMC, I was able to visit several library collections in London, such as the Wellcome Collection, the British Library, the RIBA Library and the PMC Library. During my research I focused specifically on nineteenth- and twentieth-century British handbooks and journals on the meat and dairy industry, with close attention to the design features of cow and pig housing, and the building materials used. The analysis of the sources I accessed and researched in London will constitute the core of some chapters in my forthcoming book: one related to rural modernism, hygiene and production of milk in the 1910s to the1930s; and another dedicated to animal welfare and the zootechnical discourse after the publication of Animal Machines by Ruth Harrison in 1964. I am particularly grateful to PMC for having allowed me to undertake this research in London and also for believing in a project that intertwines architectural and animal histories, and which aims at explaining the history of one of the most ethically controversial industries on the planet.