Ruo Jia

Ruo Jia is an architect/artist/theorist/historian/educator based in New York City.

She is the founder and director of the research-based practice IfWorks, exploring art/architecture possibilities individually Or collectively. Currently a Visiting Assistant Professor at the School of Architecture at Pratt Institute, she has also taught at Harvard, CUNY, Columbia, and Princeton.

Her research focuses on constructing a decolonizing postmodernist materialist space through the interweaving of “Chinese Experimental Architecture” and “French Poststructuralist Theory,” which expands to envisioning the possibilities of Asian Feminist Architecture, and Posthumanist Sustainability. Her works have been published with The Journal of Architecture, Representations, Log, Brooklyn Rail, Journal of Architecture Education, e-flux among others.

She has a Ph.D. in Architectural History and Theory from Princeton University School of Architecture with an interdisciplinary humanities certificate from Media+Modernity, a M.Arch.II from Harvard University Graduate School of Design, and a M.Arch. and a B.Arch. from Southeast University School of Architecture.

Ph.D., Princeton University School of Architecture, 2022
M.A., Princeton University School of Architecture, 2018
M. Arch. II, Harvard University Graduate School of Design, 2015
M. Arch., Southeast University School of Architecture, 2013
B. Arch., Southeast University School of Architecture, 2011

Selected Publication

• Peer-reviewed

– Jia, Ruo. Chinese Experimental Architecture Or French Poststructuralist Theory: Different Patches of the Concrete: (book forthcoming 2025).

– Jia, Ruo.不同拼块的具体：中国实验建筑或法国后结构理论[Different Shades of the Concrete: Chinese Experimental Architecture Or French Poststructuralist Theory] (book manuscript under contract).

– Jia, Ruo. “Cloud as an Alternative Architecture.” Representations (2024 Spring): 117-142.

– Jia, Ruo. “The Architecturing of Modern Love and the Architecturing of Modern Architecture: Revisiting ‘Huiyin Lin,’ ” The Journal of Architecture (April 29th 2024): 1-15. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13602365.2024.2339305

– Jia, Ruo. “Moving towards a Concrete Type through Collective Body Memory,” Transposed Memory: Visual Sites of National Recollection in the 20th and 21st century East Asia. Eds. Alison J. Miller and Eunyoung Park (Brill, 2024), 126-143.

– Jia, Ruo. “云作为另一种建筑：对达米施与中国理论物质纠葛的重构” [Cloud as an Alternative Architecture], World Art, issue 2 (June 15th 2025): 60-74.

– Jia, Ruo. “Cloud as Alternative Architecture.” 109th ACSA Conference Proceedings, 2023, 323-330, https://www.acsa-arch.org/chapter/cloud-as-an-alternative-architecture/.

– Jia, Ruo. “瓦勒里欧·奥尔格里亚蒂的‘先将来时’建筑”[Valerio Olgiati’s Architecture of the Future Anterior]. Time+ Architecture, vol. 4 (2022): 154-158.

– Jia, Ruo. “新的地域主义或是情节地域主义和布景建筑的回潮？——从MoMA中国建筑展谈起” [A New Sustainability or the Return of Sentimental Regionalism and Scenographic Architecture?—Thoughts Prompted by MoMA’s Chinese Architecture Exhibition]. The Architect, no. 220 (Dec. 2022):107-111.

– Jia, Ruo. “Unfolding Borders and Typologies.”(Dec. 2nd, 2022) koozArch, https://www.koozarch.com/essays/unfolding-borders-and-typologies.

• Non Peer-reviewed

– Axel, Nick, Nikolaus Hirsch, Ruo Jia eds. Asian Feminist Architectural Possibilities, e-flux Architecture (April 2025): https://www.e-flux.com/architecture/possibilities/

-Jia, Ruo and e-flux Architecture. “Editorial: Yeah, they were All Yellow“ (April 2025): https://www.e-flux.com/architecture/possibilities/664911/editorial-yeah-they-were-all-yellow/

– Jia, Ruo. “of Some Dice, Some Litter, Tentatively,” in Rania Ghosn, Alla Vronskaya, Ruo Jia, Ethel Baraona Pohl, Namita Vijay Dharia, Fallon Samuels Aidoo, Feminist Art and Architecture Collective (FAAC), Ilze Wolff, “The Afterlife of Energy Post-carbon and Feminist Post-work Politics,” Journal of Architecture Education, volume 78, issue 2 (Fall 2024): 638-648.

– Jia, Ruo. “To Some Extinguishing Opaque Heart: What the Hell Matters in the World,” The Journal of Architecture, vol.29, issue 5-6 (Jan. 29th 2025): 929-932.

-Jia, Ruo. “现代爱情的建筑与现代建筑的建筑：重访‘林徽因’” [The Architecturing of Modern Love and the Architecturing of Modern Architecture: Revisiting Huiyin Lin], Pengpai (Jan. 2025) https://m.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_29307592.

– Jia, Ruo. “Dear Unformed Desire…” Brooklyn Rail (Dec. 2022-Jan. 2023), https://brooklynrail.org/2023/12/art_books/Flurin-Bisig-Unformed-Desire.

– Jia, Ruo. Su Chang. “Fishing.” Urban Cosmologies: 9th Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism/Architecture. UABB, Sept. 2022, 302-303.

– Jia, Ruo. “Post-Trauma,“ Artishock Revista (28 July 2022), https://artishockrevista.com/2022/07/28/post-trauma/

– Jia, Ruo. “Post-Trauma,“ Artishock Revista, trans. Alejandra Villasmil (27 July 2022), https://artishockrevista.com/2022/07/27/maria-gabler-trama-proxyco/

– Jia, Ruo. “Riding the Reformative Wave of Postmodern Theory.” In Radical Pedagogy, edited by Beatriz Colomina, Ignacio G. Galan, Evangelos Kotsioris and Anna-Maria Meister, 150-152. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2022.

– Jia, Ruo. “Concrete Material as Chinese Architectural Reformation.” Log 51 (2021): 145-152.

– Jia, Ruo. “Theory Backfires: Shu Wang’s Post-Structuralist Alternative and a Fictionalized China.” Pidgin 25 (April 2019): 140-165.

Selected Projects

• “The Belly of a R“

   Multi-media Design

• “Feminist Spatial Practices”

   Online Platform and Community Building

• “Yeah, they were All Yellow: Asian Feminist Architectural Possibilities”

   Exhibition Design

• “Hystera”

   Multi-media Installation

• “Becoming Lo Ting/Fishing”

   The 9th Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism/Architecture

   Architectural Installation

• “OrLand”

   Instagram-based experiment

• “30lbs of Small Bags of Classic Lays Chips”

   Architectural-sculptural installation