Javier Arbona

PhD Candidate
BA 1999 (Architecture) Cornell University; MS 2004 (Architecture and Urbanism) Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Research interests: architecture, design, landscape, urban history, internet & society
Regional focus: U.S. Cities; California

Picture of Javier Arbona

My official education in geography started in earnest at UC Berkeley, but having been trained first as an architect, I reckon that I have been interested in spatial issues for a long time. My work has moved somewhat away from the singular objects of my professional past, but these sent me on the path to seeking the knowledge of the underlying politics that shape the city as a whole. My curiosity about vernacular landscapes, architecture, and the politics of memory led me to geography as an inquiry into the shaping of spaces. Previous writing I've done has centered on post-Cold War military landscapes that come to shape our ideas of nature. I wrote about the case of Vieques, Puerto Rico, in my master's thesis, condensed into an article that appeared in Traditional Dwellings and Settlements Review. Currently, I am interested in California and the Bay Area in particular in the early 90s as a particularly effervescent period of spatial inventiveness and creativity. From newly opened military spaces to the challenge of biking rights, those years represent a cutting edge of public spatial practice that I am now looking at.

Selected publications

Currently writing an article for Architectural Design (Wiley)

Arbona, Javier. 2005. "Vieques, Puerto Rico: From Devastation to Conservation and Back Again". Traditional Dwellings and Settlements Review. Volume XVII, Number 1.  (Berkeley: The International Association for the Study of Traditional Environments.)

Brown, David J ed. 2005. The HOME House Project: The Future of Affordable Housing. (Cambride: MIT Press). Link

Joachim, Mitchell, Lara Greden and Javier Arbona. 2005. “Nature’s Home.” 306090 – 08: Autonomous Urbanism. Kjersti Monson and Alex Duval, editors. (New York: Princeton Architectural Press). pp. 39-44. Link on Google Books

Personal interests

I like to read my junk email and sometimes weave portions of it into little, private poetry. I also enjoy cooking, running, and collage.

Websites of interest

Javier.est.pr | selected posts: "High Quality Replica Rolex Watches" (talk at MIT History, Theory and Criticism Forum, April 7, 2009). | Architecture Imagined as Ecological | Toshiko Mori interview | Who’s Afraid of ‘Slumdog’ (and in love with the slums)?

Berkeley-Stanford City Group

My bookmarks

Contact information

Office phone: 607 233 4615
javier@berkeley.edu