Dr Hannah Malone

Assistant Professor in the History of Modern Architecture

Research interests

As an architectural historian, I explore the relationship between politics and architecture, or how political forces shape buildings and cities. My particular interest lies in the impact of nationalism, fascism, and memory on the architecture of modern Italy.

So far, my research has focused on three areas:
My first book, entitled Architecture, Death and Nationhood (2017), examines the emergence of uniquely large and grandiose cemeteries in nineteenth-century Italy as an expression of nationalism in an emergent state. That book was also translated into Italian.
I recently completed a second book, entitled Fascist Italy and the Architecture of Death, which uncovers Benito Mussolini’s decision to rebury hundreds of thousands of soldiers who fell the First World War within newly-built ossuaries.
My current book project looks at what happened to Fascist architecture in Italy from the fall of Mussolini’s regime until the present day. Also on the theme of difficult heritage, I am also working on a transnational project that compares the treatment of fascist architecture after regime change across different European countries.

Having grown up in Italy with Irish parents, I studied for a BA degree at TCD, before completing an MPhil and PhD at the University of Cambridge (2013). Prior to returning to TCD in 2024, I worked at the University of Cambridge, the Free University Berlin, the University of Groningen, the British School at Rome, and the Max Planck Institute in Berlin.

Selected Research Publication

Monograph: Architecture, Death and Nationhood: Monumental Cemeteries of nineteenth-century Italy (2017) [Italian translation: Architettura, morte e nazione: I cimiteri monumentali italiani (2025)]
Special issue: co-edited with Christian Goeschel, “The Cultural Axis between Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany”, European History Quarterly, 54, 2 (April 2024). [OA]
Book chapter: “Questioning the idea of difficult heritage as applied to the architecture of Fascist Italy” in A Difficult Heritage: The Afterlives of Fascist-Era Art and Architecture, ed. Carmen Belmonte (Silvana Editoriale, 2023)
Article: co-authored with Selena Daly and Vanda Wilcox, “Teaching the Difficult Heritage of Italian Fascism”, Modern Italy, 1, 11(Nov. 2023). [OA]
Article: “Redefining peace: Fascist Italy and fallen soldiers of the First World War”, Ricerche Storiche, LII, 2 (May-Aug. 2022): 63–78.
Article: “The Fallen Soldier as Fascist Exemplar: Military Cemeteries and Dead Heroes in Mussolini’s Italy”, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 64, 1 (January 2022): 34–62.
Book chapter: “Modern cemeteries in Europe and North America” in The Cambridge Guide to the Architecture of Christianity, ed. Richard A. Etlin (Cambridge University Press, 2022), part IV: 911–22.
Book chapter: “Italian Fascism and the Politics of Grief” in Feeling Political: Emotions and Institutions since 1789, ed.Ute Frevert and Kerstin Maria Pahl(Palgrave, 2022)
Article: “The Republican legacy of Italy’s Fascist ossuaries of the First World War”, Modern Italy, 24, 2 (March 2019): 199–217. Awarded the Christopher Seaton-Watson Prize. [OA]
Book chapter: “Architecture, Politics and the Sacred in Military Monuments of Fascist Italy”, Modern Architecture and the Sacred, ed. Ross Anderson and Maximilian Sternberg(Bloomsbury, 2020).
Review article: “New life in the modern cultural history of death”, Historical Journal 62, 3(2019): 833–52.
Article: “Legacies of Fascism: Architecture, Heritage and Memory in contemporary Italy”, Modern Italy, 22, 4 (September 2017): 445–70.

Teaching

My teaching covers the history of architecture and urban design from the eighteenth century to the present day. In particular, I teach specialised modules on difficult heritage, on housing in Dublin, and on architecture and politics in twentieth-century Europe.

I welcome PhD proposals in the history of modern architecture, especially in relation to politics, memory, heritage, and Italy.

Media

I welcome opportunities to communicate my research to non-academic audiences through public talks, the media, and outreach publications. Previously, my research has contributed to newspaper articles, cultural festivals in the Netherlands and the UK, architectural restorations, and Italy’s commemorations for the centenary of the First World War.