My research concentrates mostly on late 19th and early 20th Century European and American Architecture. I am interested in the entire scope of architectural production and debate, from the minutiae of building technologies to the transatlantic discourse on skyscrapers and urbanism throughout the 20th Century. My publications on the history of film set design and architectural illumination have helped to define new approaches and fields of research.

My voluminous biography of German/American architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe has come out in the late summer of 2024. I am currently working on a 3-volume analysis of the architecture of Naples, Italy (under contract with DOM Publishers, Berlin).

Mellon Foundation Grant 2009 (as one of two 'Principal Investigators' for the Society of Architectural Historians)
Humanities Research Grant, annually 2003-2023
Presidential Technology for Teaching Fund, 2005 - 2006
Wendy Strothman Award 2004
Values Initiative Grant for lecture series about contemporary architecture 2002
Graham Foundation Grant 1998
Henry Merritt Wriston Grant, Brown University, 1997/1998
Curricular Development Grant, Brown University, 1997/1998

"Travel Replacement in the 19th Century" in: Perspecta: Yale School of Architecture Journal 41 (2009) "Bauhaus Mythos: Barcelona Pavillon" in: Magdalena Droste, "Mythos Bauhaus" (Dietrich Reimer Verlag 2009)

"Ludwig Mies van der Rohe" in: Architecture, AIA Publication celebrating the 150th birthday of the American Institute of Architects "Introduction. Reflections, Responses, Transformations: The Architecture of R.M.Kliment & Frances Halsband Architects," in: R.M.Kliment & Frances Halsband Architects, Images Publishing, Australia, 2008, pp. 7 – 11

"'…Eislandschaften zeigende Tapeten…': Mies van der Rohe's Entwürfe zur Wandgestaltung und Drucktechnik 1937-1950" in: Helmut Reuter, Katrina Schulte, Mies van der Rohe: Innenräume (Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2008)

"'Tribute in Light:' Iconography of a Memorial" in: Alan Marcus and Dietrich Neumann (Editors): Visualizing the City (Francis and Taylor/Routledge 2007), pp. 111-124

"The Barcelona Pavilion" in: Barcelona Modernity (Exhibition Catalogue Cleveland Art Museum and Metropolitan Museum, New York, 2007)

Visualizing the City (Francis and Taylor/Routledge 2007) Co-editor with Alan Marcus, co-author of the introductory essay, author of one additional essay

Luminous Buildings/Architecture of the Night (Hatje-Cantz Verlag, Stuttgart, 2006) (Co-editor and co-author of the exhibition catalogue of an eponymous exhibition which opened at the Kunstmuseum Stuttgart on June 8, 2006 and at the Netherlands Architecture Museum in Rotterdam January 24, 2007)

Architecture of the Night: The Illuminated Building (Prestel Publishing, Munich, New York, November 2002) (Editor, Translator of the German edition "Architektur der Nacht" and Co-Author)

Richard Neutra's Windshield House (Yale University Press, Harvard University Art Museums, November 2001) (Editor, co-author, exhibition curator)

Film Architecture from Metropolis to Blade Runner (Munich/New York: PrestelVerlag, 1996, paperback edition 1999) (Editor, do-Author, exhibition curator)

"Film und Licht. Neue Medien in der Architektur und die Architektur als Medium" in: Wolfgan Sonne (Ed.) Die Medien der Architektur (essay submitted, book forthcoming)

 

Residency, American Academy in Rome, 2014
Berlin Prize, American Academy in Berlin, 2013
Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study, University of Durham, England, 2013 (declined)
President of the Society of Architectural Historians 2008-2010
Royce Family Professorship for Excellence in Teaching, Brown University, 2008-10
Vincent Scully Visiting Professor for the History of Architecture at Yale University 2007-2009
Member of the Instititute for Advanced Study, Princeton 2002
Scholar at the Canadian Center for Architecture, 2001
Founder's Award from the Society of Architectural Historians, 1996
Philip Johnson Award from the Society of Architectural Historians, 2003
Teaching Awards at Brown University: 1994, 1999, 2005, 2006, 2008

Society of Architectural Historians, Chicago
Architectural Association, London
Phi Beta Kappa
DOCOMOMO New England

I teach three general lectures on the history of 19th and 20th Century Architecture: HA0070 (19th Century Architecture), HA0085 (Modern Architecture), which covers the period 1900-1950s and HA0086 (Contemporary Architecture), which covers the period 1960 to the present. In addition, I teach a lecture course about the history of movie set design, called "City and Cinema" and have taught the intro class to Urban Studies, called "The City" from 2014-2020, and will teach it again in a revised from in the spring of 2026, under the title "Global Cities: architecture, urban space and politics."

Undergraduate Seminars often deal with different aspects of the Architectural History of Providence, but I have also taught seminars on individual architects such as Louis Sullivan, Frank Lloyd Wright, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, or about architectural movements such as "Deconstructivism in Architecture."