Dr Simona Valeriani

My role in VARI encompasses leading the V&A/RCA History of Design Programme, as well as, in collaboration with the Heard of Academic Partnerships, overseeing our Higher Education Programmes portfolio. I currently co-supervise several PhD students (in collaboration with Royal Holloway, Kew Gardens, the Royal College of Art, the University of Oxford and the University of Edinburgh) on topics related to the history of architecture and the city, the history of museums and the history of knowledge. I have initiated and supervised a number of doctoral placements and contribute to the V&A’s Higher Education teaching with a range of academic partners including Imperial College.

I earned my master’s degree in architecture at the University of Genoa (Italy) and my PhD in Building Archaeology, Heritage Preservation and Art History at the Technical University in Berlin (Germany). Before joining the V&A in 2012 I worked for seven years in the Economic History Department at the London School of Economics, on projects related to knowledge formation and transmission in the early modern period in a global context.

My recent projects have focused on and on the history of the Royal Albert Hall and the history and contemporary practice of architectural model making. In 2021–2, as Principal Investigator on two AHRC-funded projects on architectural models, I co-curated the exhibition Shaping Space: Architectural Models Revealed at the Building Centre in London, together with Vanessa Norwood, Harriet Jennings and Mathilde Savary. I am currently working on the history of mosaic making, with particular interest in the role played by women in the 19th-century revival of mosaic techniques.

Selected publications

Minter, A.; Valeriani, S. (eds.)  Mosaics and Micromosaics: Art, Craft and Identities, V&A Publishing, 2026.

The Royal Albert Hall: Building the Arts and Sciences, Brepols, 2025

Horsfall Turner, O., Valeriani, S., Wells, M. and Fankhänel, T. (eds), An Alphabet of Architectural Models, Merrell, 2021

Valeriani, S. and Schäfer, D. (eds), ‘The History of Technology in Global Perspective’, special issue of Technology and Culture, 6.2, 2021