Profile
Architect, critic and architectural historian. Professor at IST-University of Lisbon, where she is Chair of the Architecture Scientific Board and in charge of the PhD program, as well as leader of the Heritage research line at CiTUA research center. Invited professor at University of Tokyo, ETSAUN, Polimo and Faculdade Arquitetura Universidade Porto, she has published Key Papers in Modern Architectural Heritage Conservation (2012), Modern Architecture in Africa: Angola and Mozambique (2013), Modern Heritage. Reuse, Renovation, Restoration (Birkhaüser 2022), The Critical Monumentality of Álvaro Siza (2023), Modernist Women Creators (2024) and Modernism in Africa (Docomomo-Birkhaüser 2024).
President of Docomomo International and editor of the Docomomo Journal between 2010 and 2021, her 12 years mandate has been marked by the transformation of the organisation into a truly worldwide network and the Docomomo Journal into the international periodical which provides a critical look at the contemporary context focused on the sustainable reuse of the Modern Built Heritage.
Her research field is the Critical History and Theory of Modern Movement Architecture. On these topics, she has published 29 books and 108 scientific articles, curated 10 exhibitions and organized 46 scientific events. She coordinated 14 research projects, supervised 33 doctoral theses and 47 master’s theses, participated in 55 juries and 47 scientific committees, and gave more than a hundred lectures at American, Asian, African, and European universities. Focusing on the Colonial and Post-Colonial condition, she coordinated a research project on sub-Saharan African architecture whose publication Modern Architecture in Africa was recognized by the Gulbenkian Prize, as well as the “Heal and Care” project with the edition of the book Cure & Care, architecture and health (2020). She received the Prize of X Bienal Ibero-Americana de Arquitectura y Urbanismo. She has been invited as keynote speaker at some leading universities such as ETH Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (Switzerland), University of Texas at Austin School of Architecture (US), Rice School of Architecture (US), Chitkara School of Planning and Architecture (India), Xi’an University of Architecture & Technology (China), University Eduardo Mondlane, Maputo (Mozambique), Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura – Universidad de Sevilla (Spain), Faculty of Architecture, Brno (Czech Republic), Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism at the University of Brasilia (Brazil), Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), Universidade Nacional Autónoma México (México), Accademia di Architettura di Mendrisio (Switzerland), Università di Bologna (Italy), Science University of Tokyo (Japan), Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile (Chile), Tongji University, Shanghai (China), University of Navarra (Spain), University of Mantua (Italy).
Ana Tostões is the Chair of the Docomomo-ISC Publications, member of Docomomo ISC-Registers and ISC-Interior Design. President of AICA_SP and Docomomo_PT, Member of Science Academy of Lisbon and the Fine Arts National Academy, she was awarded the Académie d’Architecture Award for the Critic and Publications (Paris, 2024), the X Bienal Ibero-Americana de Arquitectura y Urbanismo (2026), the Gulbenkian APH Prize (2014) and she’s Commander of Infante Dom Henrique Order (2006).