Annette Fierro

Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering, Rice University
Master of Architecture, Rice University

In her teaching and research, Annette Fierro addresses issues of technology within contemporary international architecture and urban culture.

Annette Fierro's current research examines trends in artificial nature imposed on the city, its architecture, and its inhabitants, historically and in the light of climate crisis. Her forthcoming article for Weitzman's LA+ synopsizes the beginning of this research, titled "Conceits and Constructs: Vegetal Architecture." (Spring 2024) 

Fierro's forthcoming book, The Architectures of the Technopolis: Archigram and the British High Tech, (Lund Humphries Press, London, January 2024) establishes and traces a network of legacies instigated by the radical technological speculation of the 1960's in London. This work encompasses technological utopias as they were embraced in different eras to the present. It speculates on, among other topics, the effect of WWII on the technological iconography of the various architects, on the influence of experimental theatre of the 60's on the evolution of the technological surfaces, on the relationship between engineering and practices of drawing in the appearance of technological apparatus, and finally the co-evolution of practices of narrative description with systems of movement in the post-industrial, nostalgic, and neoliberal city.

Fierro also authored The Glass State: The Technology of the Spectacle/Paris 1981-1998 (MIT Press, 2003), which focused on issues of transparency and technologies of François Mitterrand's "Grands Projects" in Paris. This work addressed the material and technological symbolism instigated and imposed on the city in the socialist moment of Mitterand's presidency, during which the civic infrastructure of Paris was considerably augmented. As its focus, the material detail - glass and its systems of support - emerged as the comparative feature, the "punctum." On this topic, she has lectured at Cornell University, Columbia University, and at Penn, for the Institute of French Culture and Technology.

At Weitzman, Fierro teaches in and coordinates design studios in the first-year graduate level, a semester which is devoted to understanding and positioning architecture within multiple definitions of urban morphology, as well as introducing students to representational and descriptive modalities in describing the city. She also supervises the Master's Thesis program at Penn (MArch+), a multi-disciplinary program which supports advanced students in framing independent, research-driven investigations.

Administratively, Fierro is the Director of Admissions and Advising for the Department of Architecture, after serving as Associate Chair between 2017-2022. She is a registered architect in the state of NY. Her early design work as project architect has appeared in various architectural journals, including Assemblage, Architectural Record, Progressive Architecture, Lotus, and Texas Architect.