Xinyu (Cecilia) Chen

Position Architecture Teacher Scholar
Phone  
Email xchen53@calpoly.edu
Office 34-244

Areas of Expertise

Representation
Media Studies and Culture Studies
Book and Graphic Design

Profile

Xinyu Chen is an architectural designer, educator, amateur writer and photographer. She holds a Post-Professional M.Arch II degree with a graduate certificate in Media + Modernity from Princeton University, and a Bachelor of Architecture degree with a minor in environmental studies from Rice University, where she was awarded the AIA Henry Adams Medal. Xinyu currently serves as an Architecture Teacher Scholar at the Cal Poly College of Architecture and Environmental Design. Previously, Xinyu was an instructor at Syracuse University, an assistant instructor at Princeton University, and an editor of Rumor and PLAT. Xinyu’s work has been exhibited in a83 gallery, Black Box Gallery, and the Holy Art Gallery; her scholarly writings have been featured in Paprika!, Rumor, Tangent Essays, and various symposiums and conferences worldwide. Her research interest lies in the experience of otherness in the built environment, and the visual representations thereof. Whether it is the appropriation of diasporic artifacts in American domesticity, or the internalization of nature into architecture’s conditioned space, she probes the historical underpinning of marginal experiences, and she aspires to promote inclusivity by means of design and writing. 

Experience

Educational Experience:

Master of Architecture II, Princeton University School of Architecture, Princeton, NJ 
Bachelor of Architecture & Bachelor of Arts, Rice University, Houston, TX 

Teaching Experience:

Architecture Teacher Scholar, Cal Poly College of Architecture and Environmental Design, San Luis Obispo, CA 
Instructor, Syracuse University School of Architecture, Syracuse, NY 
Assistant Instructor, Princeton University School of Architecture, Princeton, NJ 

Professional Experience:

Renzo Piano Building Workshop, Paris, France 
Manthripragada, Berkeley, CA 
Stan Allen Architect, Hudson, NY 
Moody Center for The Arts, Houston, TX 
Isozaki + HuQian Partners (Arata Isozaki & Associates), Shanghai, China 

Scholarship

Selected Publications and Recent Research:

  • “Screening Cities: Cultural Heritage and Contemporary Urban Experience in East Asia” Presentation at the 8th international conference of Cities’ Identity Through Architecture and Arts (CITAA). Sardinia, Italy. 
  • “Surfaces of Reflections: Between Human, City, and Divine” Presentation at the panel “Cinema, Video, and the De- or Re-Materialization of Moving Image,” at “Matière Matérialité,” the 36th CIHA (Congrès du Comité International d’Histoire de l’Art) World Congress. Lyon, France. 
  • “From Athena’s Shield to an Analysis of Screen Images (A Chinese Translation)” Tangent Essays (February 2024). 
  • “On, About, and Beyond Rumor” Co-authored with Kaleb Houston and Tengku Sharil, Rumor Reviews (July 2023). 
  • “Do You Hear Me Singing” Paprika! vol.7, no.6 (March 2022). 
  • “Narrating Dreams: Ingmar Bergman’s Psychoanalysis through Theresa Hak Kyung Cha’s Apparatus” Presentation at “Psychoanalysis and its Discontents: Reality, Media, and the Subject,” a symposium sponsored by Princeton University. Princeton, NJ. 

Selected Awards:

  • The Robert and Evelyn Geddes Award, Princeton University
  • AIA Henry Adams Medal, The American Institute of Architects
  • Vectorworks Design Scholarship (International Competition), for project ​​“Pliable Display-Ground” with Han Zhu and Wanting Zhou
  • Fay H. Spencer Memorial Scholarship in Architecture, Texas Architectural Foundation
  • Lonnie Hoogeboom Scholarship, Texas Architectural Foundation
  • Class of 1965 Scholarship in Architecture, Rice University

 

Updated 09.23.2024


 

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