Dr Hannah Malone

Assistant Professor in History of Modern Architecture

Research interests

As an architectural historian, I look at architecture and cities as reflection of the societies that built them. In particular, I am interested in how political forces influence architecture, and how buildings can serve as political tools. So far, my research has focused on three main areas. My first book, entitled Architecture, Death and Nationhood (Routledge, 2017), examines the monumental cemeteries of nineteenth-century Italy as mirrors of an emergent nation, a rising bourgeosie, and a modernising state. I have recently completed a second book, provisionally entitled Fascism and the Architecture of Death, which uncovers Benito Mussolini’s decision to rebury hundreds of thousands of soldiers who fell the First World War within newly-built ossuaries. My third book project looks at what happened to Fascist architecture in Italy from the end of the Second World War until the present day. On the same theme, I am also preparing a transnational project, which will compare the treatment of fascist architecture following regime change across different European countries.

Selected Research Publication

Co-edited with Christian Goeschel, “The Cultural Axis between Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany”, European History Quarterly, 54, 2 (April 2024).
“Questioning the idea of difficult heritage as applied to the architecture of Fascist Italy” in A Difficult Heritage: The Afterlives of Fascist-Era Art and Architecture, ed. Carmen Belmonte (Silvana Editoriale, 2023)
Co-authored with Selena Daly and Vanda Wilcox, “Teaching the Difficult Heritage of Italian Fascism”, Modern Italy, 1, 11(Nov. 2023).
“The Fallen Soldier as Fascist Exemplar: Military Cemeteries and Dead Heroes in Mussolini’s Italy”, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 64, 1 (January 2022): 34–62.
“Modern cemeteries in Europe and North America” in The Cambridge Guide to the Architecture of Christianity, ed. Richard A. Etlin (Cambridge University Press, 2022), part IV: 911–22.
“Italian Fascism and the Politics of Grief” in Feeling Political: Emotions and Institutions since 1789, ed.Ute Frevert and Kerstin Maria Pahl(Palgrave, 2022)
“The Republican legacy of Italy’s Fascist ossuaries of the First World War”, Modern Italy, special issue, “Difficult heritage: Negotiating the architectural and artistic legacies of Fascism in post-war and contemporary Italy” 24, 2 (March 2019): 199–217. Awarded the Christopher Seaton-Watson Prize.
Architecture, Death and Nationhood: Monumental Cemeteries of nineteenth-century Italy (Routledge, 2017)
“Legacies of Fascism: Architecture, Heritage and Memory in contemporary Italy”, Modern Italy, special issue “The Force of History”, 22, 4 (September 2017): 445–70.

Teaching

My teaching covers the history of architecture and urban design from the nineteenth century to the present day. I also teach a module of architecture and politics in modern Europe.