Willa Granger is a historian of modern American built environments. She specializes in cultural landscape approaches to vernacular architecture. Broadly speaking, Willa’s research is concerned with material histories of social welfare, including an interest in how the political economy of care and caregiving can be mapped on to buildings, spaces, and places. Her manuscript, Constructing Old Age: Race, Ethnicity, Religion and the Architecture of Homes for the Aged, 1870-1970 will offer the first book-length account of the architectural and social history of the American nursing home. This project has been supported by the American Association of University Women, the Graham Foundation, the Society of Architectural Historians (SAH), the Vernacular Architecture Forum (VAF), the Texas Architecture Foundation, and the Southeastern Society of Architectural Historians (SESAH). She has presented her work at the Harvard Urban Mellon Initiative, the American Society for Environmental History, the Universities Art Association of Canada, SAH, VAF, and SESAH. Willa has published writing in Urban Omnibus, the Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, Platform, Charette, and Buildings & Landscapes; her 2019 article, “Order, Convenience, and Beauty: The Style, Space, and Multiple Narratives of San Felipe Courts” received SESAH’s Award for Best Journal Article in 2020. In 2024 she was a Tyson Scholar of American Art at the Crystal Bridges Museum.  

Willa holds a Ph.D. in Architectural History from the University of Texas at Austin. In 2021-2022 she held a fellowship at the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University. She is currently an Assistant Professor at Florida Atlantic University within the School of Architecture.

Education:

• Ph.D. in Architecture, The University of Texas at Austin, 2021
• M.A. in Architectural History, The University of Texas at Austin, 2017
• B.A. in Urban Studies, the University of Pennsylvania, 2013