College position(s)
Director of Studies
Subject
Architecture
Dr Sofia Singler
Degrees, Awards and Prizes
MA (Cantab), MArch (Yale), PhD (Cantab). Gates Cambridge Scholarship (2016), Edward P. Bass Scholarship (2014).
Research themes
Sofia Singler (MA, MArch, PhD) is an architect and architectural historian currently based at the University of Cambridge. A Fellow of Homerton College, her research interests lie in the history and theory of modern and contemporary architecture, with particular focus on Nordic modernism, the Aaltos, and Sámi architecture.
Drawing from an interrogation of Aino, Alvar And Elissa Aalto’s sacred oeuvre, Singler's doctoral research contributed to scholarly understanding of the relationship between religion and modern architecture. Her work on the Aalto studio’s unrealised funerary chapels and cemeteries was exhibited at the Alvar Aalto Museum in 2015, and her research on Aalto designs in Germany will be exhibited in a major show in Berlin in 2023.
Alongside Aalto scholarship, Singler is pursuing new research projects on contemporary Sámi architecture and the roadside chapels of the Deep South of the United States.
Responsibilities
Architecture Tripos: Parts IA, IB and II History and Theory (Papers 1 and 2); Part II dissertations
Other
After undergraduate studies at Cambridge, Singler was awarded the Edward P. Bass Scholarship in Architecture for a professionally accredited postgraduate degree at Yale University, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Cambridge Scholarship for a PhD in Architecture back at Cambridge. In addition to her own research and design praxis, Singler teaches architectural history and theory to undergraduates in the Architecture Tripos. She began her own architecture studies at the Jyväskylä School for Visual Arts and Architecture.
She sits as an elected member on the Alvar Aalto World Heritage Nomination Committee, which seeks to advance the appointment of Aalto’s buildings to the UNESCO World Heritage list.
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