Martín Cobas
Education
Ph.D. in the History and Theory of Architecture, Princeton University
M.A. in the History and Theory of Architecture, Princeton University
Master in Design Studies in History and Theory of Design (with Distinction), Harvard Graduate School of Design
B.Arch., Universidad de la República School of Architecture, Design and Urbanism
Biography
Martín Cobas is the Fall 2025 Robertson Visiting Professor at the UVA School of Architecture. Cobas is Professor of Architectural History and Design and Co-director of the Ph.D. Program in Architecture at the School of Architecture, Design and Urbanism of the Universidad de la República (Montevideo), where he previously served as Chair of the Department of the History of Architecture and Associate Dean of Graduate Studies.
An architect and writer, Cobas’ research explores the histories and theories of modernization in Latin America, with a particular focus on Brazil. Drawing on extensive archival research, fieldwork, and cross-disciplinary perspectives — including ethnography, anthropology, media studies, literature, and the visual arts — his scholarship interrogates a series of oppositional narratives (e.g., nature/culture, animal/human, affective/rational) and geographic demarcations, advocating for complex continuities rather than categorial distinctions. Through the concept of the creaturely modern, his scholarship reframes the relationship between the built and natural environments, and architecture’s intense filiations with extra-human sentient life.
Cobas is a founding principal of Fábrica de Paisaje (The Landscape Factory), an award-winning practice known for pioneering an ecologically informed and territorially grounded approach to architecture in Latin America. The office’s work has been exhibited at the Venice Biennale of Architecture (twice), the Architectural Institute of Korea, Chicago Architecture Center (MCHAP), Terreform ONE (New York), ETSAM (Madrid), Reggio Calabria, and Monoambiente (Buenos Aires), among other venues. It has been featured in publications such as Revista Materia, PLOT, Interior Design, Harvard Design Magazine, and Ecological Urbanism (Harvard GSD/Lars Müller). Cobas earlier design work — awarded the Archiprix International 2005 in Glasgow — has been exhibited at Scotland’s Centre for Architecture (Glasgow), as well as in Prague and Rotterdam.
His writings have appeared in journals including NESS, Architecture & Culture, gta Papers, PLOT, Pidgin, THEMA, and Vitruvia, as well as in volumes such as Radical Pedagogies (MIT Press) and The Architect and the Animal (MIT Press). Forthcoming publications include “A Brazilian Fable” in The Animal in Modern and Post-modern Architecture (Routledge), “Stone: A Portrait” in Lina Bo Bardi (Routledge), and “Treacherous Grounds: Fire; then Lobotomy,” in Climate Collectivism (Routledge). He co-authored the book-catalogue Francisco Villegas Berro (UdelaR) and is currently completing two book projects: Dieste Redux: Machines Towards an Infrastructural Order — recipient of the first Julio Vilamajó Prize for its contribution to the field — and Liminal Creatures/Liminal Topographies: On Lina Bo Bardi’s Ethno-zoo-botanical Lives, based on his doctoral dissertation. His current research project, tentatively titled “Venomous Zoologies; Healing Herbaria: Nature, Collection, and Loss in Modern Brazil,” investigates interspecies entanglements and ethno-environmental thought in modern Brazil — often through the lens of emerging scientific institutions — to define a liminal space of inter-ontological diplomacy, critical to understanding contemporary phenomena in Brazil and beyond.
Cobas is a founding editor of the journal Vitruvia and Revista R. In 2024, he co-edited and co-curated the exhibition Atlas de Proyectos 0, 10, 100, 1.000, 10.000, the first in a series of major biennial events at FADU-UdelaR. He has contributed to international initiatives including Harvard’s The South America Project, and the Ibero-American Architecture and Urbanism Biennal (BIAU, 2014).
He has taught at Princeton University’s School of Architecture, Harvard GSD, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador, Universidad Torcuato Di Tella, and Escola da Cidade, and has served as a design critic at several other institutions. He has lectured widely, most recently at Harvard University, University of Virginia, ETH Zürich, University of Cambridge, Florida International University, Politecnico di Milano, Princeton University, Universidad Torcuato Di Tella, Escola da Cidade, as well as at international conferences such as EAHN, AHRA, and LASA.
Cobas holds a professional degree in Architecture from the School of Architecture, Design and Urbanism of the Universidad de la República, a Master in Design Studies in History and Theory of Design (with Distinction) from Harvard GSD, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in the History and Theory of Architecture from Princeton University.
