Nana Last is an architectural theorist and designer. She is Associate Professor at the University of Virginia School of Architecture where she teaches courses in architectural theory and design. Her work focuses on interrelationships that develop between architecture, art and philosophy in modern and contemporary work. Her book: Wittgenstein's House: Language, Space and Architecture was published by Fordham University Press in 2008 and will available in paperback in March 2012.
Nana Last received a Ph. D. in Architecture and Art: History, Theory and Criticism from the MIT, a Masters degree in Architecture from Harvard University, and a BA in Philosophy and Art Criticism from Carnegie-Mellon University. She has published essays in journals including: Any, Assemblage, Harvard Design Magazine, Thresholds, Praxis and Art Journal. Her essays have been published in anthologies including Theory in Contemporary Art since 1985, Penser, Dessiner, Construire: Wittgenstein et l'Architecture, Writings on Thomas Struth and Architecture, Language, Critique: Around Paul Engelmann.
She has co-curated the exhibition "Paradox and Practice: Architecture in the Wake of Conceptualism" (University of California, Irvine, 2007) and co-written the accompanying catalog. She has received a Getty Library Research Grant, an Arthur W. Wheelwright Fellowship and a Graham Foundation Grant.
Her current work includes completing a manuscript entitled: When Art Meets Architecture, and a book and digital art project on the work of the contemporary German artist Thomas Struth. Forthcoming articles investigate the work of contemporary German installation artist Katherina Grosse, examine issues of gender and architecture, discuss the social/architectural impact of the construct of fluditiy, consider the possibilities for and role of thesis in architectural education and look at various approaches to depicting the urban environment.
