Antonio Ottomanellistudies architecture in Milan and Lisbon and is an adjunct professor in the architecture-planning department at Milan Politecnic. In 2009, Ottomanelli set up IRA-C—interaction research and architecture in crisis context—a public device to support research realities in the field of urban and social strategies. He has reported in Italy and abroad (L’Aquila earthquake, 2009; Haiti earthquake, 2010; Italy G8 summit, 2010).

Presently Ottomanelli is studying issues related to the current situation of the cityscape connected to the civil daily life in areas in states of emergency, with close attention to the Middle East. During the last two years, he has been working in Afghanistan, investigating the effect of the international military presence in the northernmost main urban center and in the smaller villages in the Herat and Kabul province. He has also worked in Iraq, documenting the withdrawal of the US military forces and the development differences between the Kurdistan region and the rest of the country.

Ottomanelli also works as a photographer for theatre companies (Pathosformel, Office For Human Theatre). Ottomanelli has been published in the architecture magazines Area, Abitare, AR, Domus, and the monthly magazine by Emergency, L’Europeo. He was recently published in the volume Maddalena Effect—edited by Rizzoli International and Abitare Segesta—for documenting the requalification and recovery projects done on the island of La Maddalena for the G8 summit.

Ottomanelli was a contributor for Abitare International Magazine in 2010. In 2011, he joined LUZphoto Agency. “City of Destruction,”—a photographic essay related to the theory of the “Third Landscape” that attempts to test out, through architecture and landscape, the relationship between identity and crisis—received two honorable mentions in architecture and fine art at the International Lucie Foundation Awards in 2011.

His work was presented in 2011, during the third edition of the international festival Festarch and in 2010 at the Project circuit in Berlin. His research on Baghdad is in the international festival Sao Paulo Calling, a six-month exhibition festival promoted by the Segretaria de Habitaçao and curated by Stefano Boeri. Sao Paulo Calling is a multiform initiative, lasting from January to June 2012.