Dr. Felipe Hernández

Felipe Hernández, Ph.D., is a Colombian-born architect living and working in the United Kingdom. He is an Associate Professor of Architecture and Urban Studies at the University of Cambridge, and a Fellow Architect at King’s College Cambridge, where he also serves as Director of Studies in Architecture. He was the first Latin American to direct the Centre of Latin American Studies at Cambridge (CLAS) and is currently the Director of the M.Phil. in Architecture and Urban Studies (MAUS). His research explores the intersection between architecture and urbanism under conditions of 'coloniality', seeking relevant approaches to teaching and practicing architecture in the Americas.

Felipe has published extensively on Modern Architecture in Latin America, addressing critical issues such as race, gender, and socio-economic disparity since the early twentieth century. He is the author of:

Hernández, F. Bhabha sobre la arquitectura. Barcelona – Reverté. (2024)                                            https://www.reverte.com/libro/psa-05-bhabha-sobre-la-arquitectura_155256/  

Lara, F. and F. Hernández (eds) (2021) Decolonising the Spatial History of the Americas. Austin: Center for American Architecture and Design.

Lara, F. and F. Hernández (eds) (2021) Spatial Concepts for the Americas. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

Hernández, F. and A. Becerra Santacruz (eds) (2017) Marginal Urbanisms: Informal and Formal Development in Cities of Latin America. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholar Publishing. 

Hernández, F. (2010) Bhabha for Architects. London – New York: Routledge. (Translated to five languages)

Hernández, F. (2010) Beyond Modernist Masters: Latin American Architecture Today. Basel – Berlin – Boston: Birkhäuser.

His third monograph, Spaces of Coloniality (Routldge) explores the persistence of colonial principles and practices in contemporary architecture and architectural pedagogy. It focuses primarily on cities in the Andean Region of South America, introducing arguments with great relevance for the study of architecture and urbanism everywhere. He is also Lead Editor of The Routledge Companion to Critical Approaches in Race and Architecture (Routledge), a book that expands current debates about the relationship between race and architecture.

He has also recently established the Housing Design-Research Collaborative with architects at Universidad del Valle in Cali, Colombia. The collaborative started with a Summer School in 2024 with a view to develop alternative and more pertinent approaches to social housing in Colombia, and other countries in the Latin American region.  

Felipe Hernández was born in Colombia where he graduated as an architect. After graduation he led the group who designed La Plaza de los Poetas in Cali, Colombia, along with renowned architect Diego Peńaloza. He then set up his own practice, Fragmentos Studio, in 1994 where he completed several projects in Cali. He then went to Nottingham University, where he obtained an MA in Architecture and Critical Theory, graduating with distinction. Thus, he obtained two scholarships to continue on doing a Phd. During his PhD he taught at the Bartlett School of Architecture. He graduated in 2003 and went to teach at the University of Liverpool, where he led the final year design studio for several years and helped to create the Centre for Architecture and the Visual Arts (CAVA). 

In 2009 Felipe moved to the University of Cambridge, where he has taught courses at all levels in the undergraduate courses and helped to create the M.Phil in Architecture and Urban Studies, which he currently directs. He also set up Cities South of Cancer (2014-2018), where several PhD students carried out research on cities like Bogota and Cali (in Colombia), Buenos Aires (Argentina), Jakarta (Indonesia) and Khulna (Bangladesh). After being the first Colombia ever to hold a full-time academic position at the University of Cambridge, he became the first Latin American to direct the Centre of Latin America Studies at that University.

More recently, Felipe has developed a renewed interest in Colombia where he has collaborated with various institutions and created the Housing Design-research Collaborative to investigate alternative approaches to social housing in the country and other places throughout the Latin American region.

He is currently completing his third monograph and expecting the publication of his compendium on Race and Architecture, both to be published by Routledge.