Interview Katherine Wheeler, 16 October 2016

Gilda Santana joined the faculty of the University of Miami Libraries in 2007 as Head of Architecture Information and Resources to direct the Paul Buisson Architecture Library. She led the expansion and redesign of the library now called the Architecture Research Center (ARC) in 2018. Her research interests include facilitating the culture of design research through studio embedded-librarianship and the evolution of digital humanities in architecture and the arts. In 2013 she became the Librarian for Art & Art History. Santana has a Master of Science in Architecture from the School of Architecture, University of Miami, a Master’s in Library and Information Science from Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, and a Bachelor of Art from Bard College where she majored in Art History. She actively serves in the Association of Architecture School Librarians (AASL) and the Art Libraries Association of North America (ARLIS).

Professor Wheeler sees her research as a reflection of her transition from practicing architect to studio professor, and ultimately to architectural historian. How these three aspects of architecture—practice, pedagogy, and history—intersect is at the core of her work. Her current project, The Redemption of the Renaissance: Changing Perceptions of Renaissance Architecture in England, 1850-1914, addresses this most directly. Her teaching investigates these intersections in a seminar on the history and theory of architectural drawing, which studies the way drawing impacts architectural thought. She also teaches a seminar on the writings of great architects as well as the second half of the survey of the history of architecture