Giovanna Bassi Cendra is a historian of modern Latin American art and architecture whose research examines the entanglement of architecture, developmentalism, and extractive capitalism in the Americas during the Cold War. She holds an MA in Art History from the University of Houston and a Master of Architecture degree from the Illinois Institute of Technology. Dr. Bassi has served as Scholar-in-Residence at the University of Houston’s College of Architecture and Design, where she continues to teach undergraduate and graduate courses as a lecturer.

Dr. Bassi's first book project examines the modern university-city in Chile as a technology of what she terms extractive development. Her doctoral research received the Carter Manny Research Award from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts in 2020 and was also supported by the Rockefeller Foundation, the Wagoner Foreign Study Scholarship, and Rice University.

She has presented her work at leading institutions and international conferences, including the symposium Unearthing the Earth: Architectural Histories of Extractivism at Cornell University's College of Architecture, Art, and Planning (2026) and the College Art Association Annual Conference (2026). Dr. Bassi is a founding member of the Racial Geography Project research collective at Rice University and has collaborated with the Documents Project of the International Center for the Arts of the Americas at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Her essay on Argentine artist Gyula Kosice's Hydrospatial City (1946–1972), which highlights the work's pioneering critique of the modernist functional city, received the Peter Marzio Award for Outstanding Research in Latin American and Latino Art in 2017.

Publications

“La Ciudad Hidroespacial: Challenging the Functional City.” In García, María Amalia, ed. Kosice. Intergaláctico (exh. cat.). Buenos Aires, Houston: Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires (MALBA); Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 2024. (Abridged version of an article published online—see below

“Academic and Architectural Modernization for Development: Financial and Technical Assistance to the University of Concepción, Chile, 1956–1968.” Rockefeller Archive Center Research Reports (March 16, 2023), available from https://rockarch.issuelab.org/resource/academic-and-architectural-modernization-for-development-financial-and-technical-assistance-to-the-university-of-concepcion-chile-1956-1968.html

Co-authored with Fabiola López-Durán. “Breather: John Sparagana’s Third Condition.” In Sicardi | Ayers | Bacino 25+, edited by Mariela Guilarte, 266–69. Houston, TX: Sicardi | Ayers | Bacino, 2022. (Originally an introductory essay to the exhibition “John Sparagana: Breather,” Sicardi Gallery, September 14–October 19, 2017).

“La Ciudad Hidroespacial: Challenging the Functional City.” ICAA Documents Project Working Papers: The Publication Series for Documents of 20th-century Latin American and Latino Art 6 (December 2018): 4-15, https://icaa.mfah.org/s/en/page/icaa-working-papers-number-6#?c=&m=&s=&cv=&xywh=-949%2C0%2C3137%2C1752. Winning essay, Peter C. Marzio Award (listed above).

Short biographies of the artists “José Gabriel Fernández,” “Oscar Muñoz,” and “Víctor Grippo.” Contingent Beauty: Contemporary Art from Latin America, edited by Mari Carmen Ramírez and María C. Gaztambide, 233-35. Houston, Texas: Museum of Fine Arts; New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 2015.

Co-authored with Sandra L. Zavala Pflucker. “Alameda de Acho, un Paseo en la Historia.” Arkinka: Revista de arquitectura, diseño y construcción 222 (May 2014): 102-11 (invited).

Co-authored with Sandra L. Zavala Pflucker. “Evolución y Desaparición de la Alameda de Acho.” In Ganadores y menciones honrosas del concurso Juan Gunther en la categoría ‘Investigaciones históricas sobre Lima,’ edited by Patricia Mondoñedo Murillo, 129-61. Lima: Gerencia de Cultura, Municipalidad Metropolitana de Lima, 2014. Finalist essay, Juan Günther Award (listed above).

Awards

Dean’s Conference, Research, and Professional Advancement Fund, School of Humanities, Rice University (2024)

Brown Foundation Dissertation Writing Award Department of Art History, Rice University (2022)

Brown Foundation Mentored Teaching Award Department of Art History, Rice University (2022)

Carter Manny Research Award, Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts (2020)

Wagoner Foreign Study Scholarship, Office of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies, Rice University (2020)

Rockefeller Archive Center Research Grant, Rockefeller Foundation (2020)

Foreign Study Scholarship, Office of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies, Rice University (2019)

Brown Foundation Dissertation Research Award, Department of Art History, Rice University (2019)

Summer Research Travel Award, Department of Art History, Rice University (2018)

Peter C. Marzio Award for Outstanding Research in 20th-Century Latin American and Latino Art, International Center for the Arts of the Americas, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (2017)

Guenther Scholarship Travel Grant, School of Art, University of Houston (2015)

Linda Schele Award for Art History Writing, School of Art, University of Houston (2014)

Friends of the Arts and Hohlt-Wich scholarships School of Art, University of Houston (2014)

Third prize, Concurso Juan Günther: Investigaciones históricas sobre Lima, Municipalidad de Lima Metropolitana, Lima, Peru (2013)

Henry Adams Medal, American Institute of Architects (2006)