Ralph Ghoche

Assistant Professor, Department of Architecture (Barnard)

Email: rghoche@barnard.edu

Architecture; Urbanism; Algeria

Ralph Ghoche is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Architecture at Barnard College, specializing in nineteenth-century architectural and urban history. His current research centers on urban and territorial practices in Algeria during the French colonial period. One of his principal research projects is focused on the interventions of the Catholic Church in Algiers, examining how the Church reshaped urban space through the construction, conversion, and erasure of buildings to advance its aim of resurrecting Augustinian Christendom in North Africa. Simultaneously, Ghoche is involved in a second research project examining stone quarries and mineral extraction across Algeria. The broader objective of this project is to clarify how Western architecture's material reality is inscribed within global networks of extraction and exchange. 

Ghoche holds a professional degree in architecture from McGill University and a Ph.D. in architectural history and theory from the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation at Columbia. He is co-chair of the Columbia University Seminar, Beyond France, and is a member of the editorial board of Les Cahiers de la recherche architecturale, urbaine et paysagère.