Architect, editor, and curator Giovanna Borasi joined the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) in 2005, first as Curator of Contemporary Architecture (2005-10), then as Chief Curator (2014-19). She has been the Director of the CCA since January 2020.

Borasi’s work explores alternative ways of practicing and evaluating architecture, considering the impact of contemporary environmental, political and social issues on urbanism and the built environment. She studied architecture at the Politecnico di Milano, worked as an editor of Lotus International (1998–2005) and Lotus Navigator (2000– 2004) and was Deputy Editor in Chief of Abitare (2011–2013).

One of Borasi’s latest curatorial projects is a three-part documentary film series that reconsiders architecture’s relationship to and understanding of home and homelessness, living alone, and the elderly. The first film, What It Takes to Make a Home (2019), screened at film festivals and institutions worldwide, including at the United Nations headquarters in New York City as part of the 58th Session of the Commission for Social Development. The series is part of the CCA’s one-year investigation Catching Up with Life, which explores how architecture and urbanism could better respond to changing notions of family, love, friendship, work, labour, automation, governance, ownership, debt, consumerism, retirement, digital omnipresence, and death that have all shifted, multiplied, and diversified in meaning.

Photo (detail): Richmond Lam. Courtesy of the Canadian Centre for Architecture.