Faculty Profile

Lily Chi’s teaching covers topics in contemporary design research, 18th to 21st-century theory and criticism, and architectural drawing/representation in western history. Her studios have investigated urban temporalities, 1:1 and the situational, film and formation, and questions of location/globalization in the contemporary city. Chi served as design editor for the Journal of Architectural Education from 2000–04. She is completing a writing project on city-building, war, and propaganda in 20th-century Saigon. 

Chi received her B.Arch. with high distinction from Carleton University (Canada), her M.Phil. in architectural history and theory from Cambridge University, and her Ph.D. from McGill University. Her doctoral work examined the role of Enlightenment concepts of custom, nature, and history in the formation of a modern architectural discourse. These themes are developed in her current research on the "sites" of architectural work in a geographically expansive discipline.

• ARCH 5301 Theories and Analyses of Architecture 1
• ARCH 2301/2302 Architectural Analysis
• ARCH 6110 Graduate Design Seminar
• ARCH 5110 Thesis Proseminar
• ARCH 3308/6308 Drawing Ideas

• “Sighting Saigon,” Tourism Revisited, ed. David Vanderburgh and Hilde Heynen (2006)
• "On the Use of Architecture: The Destination of Buildings Revisited," Chora 2 (1996)
• “The Problem with the Architect as Writer: Time and Narrative in the Work of Aldo Rossi and John Hejduk,” in Architecture, Ethics, and Technology, ed. Alberto Perez-Gomez (1994)

• Institute for the Social Sciences grant for Building on the Informalized City: an Interdisciplinary Conference in collaboration with Jeremy Foster (2010)
• Graham Foundation for the Arts grant, for Architecture, Tourism, and Citizenship: Saigon, 1911-63 (2004)
• Rotch Traveling Studio Grant, Cornell M.Arch.2 Hanoi studio (2002)
• Finalist Prize, "A Room in the Garden" design competition in collaboration with Claudio Venier
• Design Project Grant for "Temporary Cities" project, Canada Council for the Arts, in collaboration with John McMinn