RHN 20/2026 | Forum
The AnimalFarm Dispatch
February 1st, 2026 marked the first day of the project AnimalFarm: An Architectural History of Intensive Animal Farming (1570–1992), funded by an ERC Starting Grant and hosted by the Department of Architecture and Design of the Politecnico di Torino, Italy (PI: Sofia Nannini).
The project investigates the architectural history of factory farming from early modern Europe to the present day. From sixteenth-century Palladian villas to today's concentrated feeding operations, AnimalFarm starts from the assumption that Western architecture has evolved through the entanglements between humans and domesticated animals. The project focuses primarily on cattle, pigs, poultry, horses, and on their species-specific architectures. It explores the architecture of the farm in its broadest sense, considering typologies and technologies, as well as institutions and politics. We will do so by analysing the printed sources that turned animal husbandry into a transnational and industrial model, such as rural treatises, zootechnical handbooks, farmers' journals, etc.
You can stay in touch with the AnimalFarm team via the project's newsletter.
For further info, please reach out at: sofia.nannini@polito.it