Eric Nay

AFFILIATIONS
Dr. Eric Nay is an Associate Professor at OCAD University and permanent faculty member in the Department of Geography and Environment at Mount Allison University in the Canadian Maritimes and teaches history and theory of architecture courses at the graduate level at the University of Toronto, Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design. Eric holds degrees from the University of Kentucky (B.Arch), Cornell University (M.Arch), and the University of Toronto (PhD), and was a Judge Kenneth Brille Scholar at the Hamline University School of Law.

PRACTICE
Eric has practiced architecture and design in New York City, Chicago, and California including working with Skidmore, Owings and Merrill as a designer in their Chicago office, as well as with Architects that include José Oubrerie (Le Corbusier protégé) and Paul Muller (Robert Venturi and Denise Scott-Brown's office) and others.

PEDAGOGY
Eric's teaching experience includes teaching architectural history and theory, environmental design studios and courses in human geography and design culture. He has taught for nearly three decades at more than a dozen universities, colleges and cultural institutions across Asia, the Middle East, the UK and the Americas, including the Irish Architecture Foundation (Dublin), the University of California at Davis (US), the American University of Sharjah (UAE), King Mongkut’s University (Bangkok, Thailand) and Cornell University (US).

RESEARCH
Nay’s research is interdisciplinary, focusing on modern architecture as cultural heritage, decolonization, and the intersections of sustainability, globalization, and social justice. His work also explores geopolitics, spatial justice, and heritage frameworks such as UNESCO World Heritage, alongside critical studies of figures like Le Corbusier, contributing to postcolonial discourse in contemporary architecture and design. Publications include SPOOL (Netherlands); ARQ (Chile); ICOMOS (Germany); docomomo (US); The Humanities and Technology Review (US); INTBAU (Italy); Open House International (UK); The Journal of the Constructed Environment (Canada); Alternatives Journal (Canada) and Folk, Knowledge, Place (China) and The PLAN (Italy). His scholarship continues to contribute to architectural theory, critical heritage studies, and contemporary debates on conservation, pedagogy, and global design practice.

CURRENT
Current projects include Dark Matter: Revisiting the Architecture of Coal in Post-War Europe ACME (Architecture of Coal in Modern Europe) - a book project funded by an ERC Advanced Grant, 2024–2030; and “Moroccan Modernism and Post-colonial Imaginaries: Forms of Resistance and Architectural Transformation,” a sabbatical project just beginning based on a multi-tiered investigation framed by critical design pedagogy and decolonization.