The Empire is an architecture and planning office founded in 2013 by Ludovico Centis.
The office's wide-ranging activity involves both design and teaching, and both research and writing. The Empire designs interiors and ephemeral installations, buildings and public spaces, large-scale projects and territorial visions. The Empire's research focuses on the ways in which individuals and institutions, as well as desires and power, shape cities and landscapes.
Ludovico Centis is an architect, founder of the office The Empire and co-founder and editor of the architecture magazine San Rocco. He holds a PhD in Urbanism (Università Iuav di Venezia) and is currently adjunct professor in Urban Design at Politecnico di Milano. His research focuses on the ways in which individuals and institutions, as well as desires and power, shape cities and landscapes.
Centis has been a partner at the architectural office Salottobuono from 2007 to 2012. He has lectured
widely in international universities and venues, such as the Auditorium dell’Ara Pacis (Rome), the Hong Kong & Shenzhen Biennale of Urbanism, the Palais de Tokyo (Paris), Technischen Universität Wien (Vienna), the Architectural Association (London), Cornell University (Ithaca, NY), Princeton University (Princeton, NJ), Bauhaus-Universitaet (Weimar), the University of Chicago, the Beijing University of Civil Engineering and Architecture, the Kyoto Institute of Technology.
Centis has been the 2013-14 Peter Reyner Banham Fellow at the University at Buffalo-SUNY. During the spring of 2015 he has been at the Center for Land Use Interpretation as a participant in the Wendover Residence Program. Centis was awarded a 2018 Getty Library Research Grant at the Getty Center in Los Angeles and a 2020 Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art – Yale University Research Support Grant.
Centis has taught at Università Iuav di Venezia, Politecnico di Milano, University of Trieste, the State University of New York–University at Buffalo and has been a Visiting School Head at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London between 2020 and 2022. Most recently, he was Spring 2026 Weinberg Fellow in Architectural History and Preservation at the Italian Academy for Advanced Studies in America at Columbia University in New York City.
Centis has published essays and papers in refereed journals such as Domus, Town Planning Review,
Landscape Journal, Log, OASE, San Rocco, Topos, Arch+, AA Files, Harvard Design Magazine. Recent
books include "Reyner Banham: A set of actual tracks" (2024), "The Lake of Venice. A scenario for Venice and its lagoon" (2022, co-authored with Lorenzo Fabian), and "A parallel of ruins and landscapes "(2019).
Collaborators since 2013: Sam Khakipoor, Yoichi Iwamoto, Anastasiia Stryzhevska, Maya Zheliazkova, Martina Tolotti, Joseph Swerdlin, Zakaria Boucetta, Storm Armstrong, Kaitlyn O'Connell, Peter Urban, Mark Belles, Adam Feldman, Emanuele Santochirico, Uros Vukovic, Nadezhda Safronova, Thuy Hang Le, Minh Huyen Nguyen, Anna Mikhailova, Sarvenaz Askari, Jana Stojanovic, Shahdan Adel Mamdouh Mohammed Mamdouh, Ivana Cobejova, Hakan Yarman, Tandis Toofanian, Tommaso Petrosino, Elizabeth Selby, Jawad Nazzal, Georgina Petrussa, Zhanna Beglaryan, Matteo Vianello, Omid Mojrisazan Tousi, Paride Zambelli, Franziska Goedicke, Yueqi Ma, Eleni Pediaditaki, Merna Amr Mohamed Nasreldin Rakha, Barbara Xu, Yara Teresa Gibin, Nodar Dekanosidze, Angela Moretto, Maja Ghannoum, Vittorio Cusan, Berk Ozturk, Sana Zanjanchi, Siavash Bahrami, Fang Liu, Marco Renzi, Martina Galdangelo, Miguel Francisco Sebastian, Ana Flavia Piva Panzenhagen, Abel Getachew Assefa, Dong Zhang, Federico Vascotto.
The Empire accepts spontaneous applications with a digital portfolio (10 mb maximum) in pdf-format at office@theempire.eu