Six panelists on stage discuss the future of architectural practice.

History, Theory, Criticism

History, Theory, Criticism

Georgia Tech's School of Architecture has a distinguished record of innovative scholarship in the field of History, Theory, and Criticism. Drawing on the unique range of disciplines and professions within the College and the Institute, faculty contribute to a growing field of cross-cultural studies and interdisciplinary scholarship that use concepts from humanistic, social scientific, and technical disciplines, some traditionally seen as outside the purview of architectural history and theory in order to better understand the material, spatial, intellectual, and ideological dimensions of the physical world. To this end, linkages have been established with the School of Literature, Media, and Communication and with the School of History and Sociology at Georgia Tech’s Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts.

Research Areas

An intricate, multilayered ceiling detail

Aesthetic Theory

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A vintage photograph of females working at an architectural practice.

Architectural Practice

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A graph and map showing a change in patterns and delivery modes from 1768 to 1838

Design Networks

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Interior and exterior of a farmhouse-style building

Heritage Documentation and Visualization

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Space as indicated by shape and room placement.

Interpretation and Analysis

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Black and white photo of a post-colonial church.

Post-Colonial Architectural Cultures

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Research Trajectories

Taking advantage of the resources available in the Atlanta metropolitan area and beyond, doctoral students engage questions relevant to the contemporary world, using rigorous scholarship, scientific analysis, and theoretical reflection to promote innovative research that challenges the assumptions on which public and scholarly debate about architecture are often based. The aim of research in History, Theory, and Criticism is thus to position architecture within a wider field of critical, scientific, and cultural inquiry, using international and cross-cultural research, inter-disciplinary work, as well as novel social, cultural, philosophical, and scientific perspectives to expand the scope and range of historical and theoretical inquiry. 

While centered primarily on modern and contemporary architecture, student interests vary significantly by subject area, period, region, and methodological emphasis. As is evident in the following list of PhD dissertations, doctoral student research in the area of History, Theory, and Criticism focuses on a wide range of subjects within or across a variety of fields, from architecture to urbanism, landscape, and engineering/building technology. 

Prater, Robin Hensley. "The Neo-Georgian Architecture of Sir Edwin Landseer Lutyens (1869-1944)." Georgia Institute of Technology, 2017. Advisor: Robert M. Craig

Porter, Zachary Tate. "Shifting Grounds of Architectural Practice: Boundary Conditions and Field Formations in the U.S. Design Professions." Georgia Institute of Technology, 2017. Advisor: George B. Johnston

Hyun, Myung Seok. "Seeing Architectural Photographs: Space and Time in the Works of Julius Shulman and Ezra Stoller." Georgia Institute of Technology, 2017. Advisor: Sonit Bafna

Gokmen, Sabri. "Expansion and Contraction: Goethean Polarity and Architecture." Georgia Institute of Technology, 2017. Advisor: Lars Spuybroek

Kim, Hoyoung. "Conceptual Expression and Depictive Opacity: Changing Attitudes Towards Architectural Drawings between 1960 and 1990." Georgia Institute of Technology, 2016. Advisor: Sonit Bafna

Mamoli, Myrsini. "Towards of a Theory of Reconstructing Ancient Libraries." Georgia Institute of Technology, 2014. Advisors: Terry Knight, John Peponis

Ziada, Hazem. "Gregarious Space, Uncertain Grounds, Undisciplined Bodies the Soviet Avant-Garde and the ‘Crowd’ Design Problem." Ph.D., Georgia Institute of Technology, 2011. Advisor: Sonit Bafna

Setiawan, Arief B. "Modernity in Architecture in Relation to Context." Ph.D., Georgia Institute of Technology, 2010. Advisor: Ronald B. Lewcock

Rizzuto, Anthony P. "Tectonic Memoirs: The Epistemological Parameters of Tectonic Theories of Architecture." Ph.D., Georgia Institute of Technology, 2010. Advisor: Ronald B. Lewcock

Zhu, Ying. "Evidence of Existing Knowledge of China and Its Influence on European Art and Architecture in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries." Ph.D., Georgia Institute of Technology, 2009. Advisor: Ronald B. Lewcock

Middleton, Deborah Antoinette. "Growth and Expansion in Post-War Urban Design Strategies: C. A. Doxiadis and the First Strategic Plan for Riyadh Saudi Arabia (1968–1972)." Ph.D., Georgia Institute of Technology, 2009. Advisor: Richard Dagenhart

Gharipour, Mohammad. "Pavilion Structure in Persianate Gardens Reflections in the Textual and Visual Media." Ph.D., Georgia Institute of Technology, 2008. Advisor: Douglas C. Allen

Din, Edouard Denis. "Emergent Symmetries: A Group Theoretic Analysis of an Exemplar of Late Modernism: The Smith House by Richard Meier." Ph.D., Georgia Institute of Technology, 2008. Advisors: Athanassios Economou, Charles Eastman

Hobson, Daphne Louise. "The Domestic Architecture of the Earliest British Colonies in the American Tropics: A Study of the Houses of the Caribbean ‘Leeward’ Islands of St. Christopher, Nevis, Antigua and Montserrat. 1624–1726." Ph.D., Georgia Institute of Technology, 2007. Advisor: Ronald B. Lewcock

Kim, Ransoo. "The ‘Art of Building’ (Baukunst) of Mies Van Der Rohe." Ph.D., Georgia Institute of Technology, 2006. Advisor: Ronald B. Lewcock

Wolford, Jane N. "Architectural Contextualism in the Twentieth Century, with Particular Reference to the Architects E. Fay Jones and John Carl Warnecke." Georgia Institute of Technology, 2005. Advisor: Ronald B. Lewcock

Sobti, Manu P. "Urban Metamorphosis and Change in Central Asian Cities after the Arab Invasions." Ph.D., Georgia Institute of Technology, 2005. Advisor: Ronald B. Lewcock

He, Weiling. "Flatness Transformed and Otherness Embodied: A Study on John Hejduk's Diamond Museum and Wall House 2 across the Media of Painting, Poetry, Architectural Drawing and Architectural Space." Ph.D., Georgia Institute of Technology, 2005. Advisor: John Peponis

Morin, Pauline Marie. "Leon Battista Alberti: Architect as Orator." Ph.D., Georgia Institute of Technology, 2002. Advisor: Elizabeth M. Dowling

Chanchani, Samiran. "Architecture and Central Public Libraries in America, 1887–1925: A Study of Conflicting Institutions and Mediated Designs." Ph.D., Georgia Institute of Technology, 2002. Advisor: Ronald B. Lewcock

Bafna, Sonit. "A Morphology of Intentions: The Historical Interpretation of Mies Van Der Rohe's Residential Designs." Ph.D., Georgia Institute of Technology, 2001. Advisor: John Peponis

Kanekar, Aarati. "The Geometry of Love and the Topography of Fear: On Translation and Metamorphosis from Poem to Building." Ph.D., Georgia Institute of Technology, 2000. Advisor: John Peponis

Joyner, John Edward, III. "The Architecture of Orthodox Anglicanism in the Antebellum South: The Principles of Neo-Gothic Parish Church Design and Their Application in the Southern Parish Church Architecture of Frank Wills and His Contemporaries." Ph.D., Georgia Institute of Technology, 1999. Advisor: Robert M. Craig

Mical, Thomas. "A Fragmentary Writing: The (Convulsive) Enigma of Eternal Recurrence in De Chirico's ‘Architecture’." Ph.D., Georgia Institute of Technology, 1998. Advisor: Ronald B. Lewcock

Rab, Samia. "The "Monument" in Architecture and Conservation: Theories of Architectural Significance and Their Influence on Restoration, Preservation, and Conservation." Ph.D., Georgia Institute of Technology, 1997. Advisor: Ronald B. Lewcock

Flores, Carol Ann Hrvol. "Owen Jones, Architect." Ph.D., Georgia Institute of Technology, 1996. Advisor: Ronald B. Lewcock

Smith, Albert Cowper, III. "Architectural Model as Machine." Ph.D., Georgia Institute of Technology, 1995. Advisor: Marco Frascari

Lee, Dongeon. "Phenomenology, Hermeneutics, and Existentialism as Sources of an Inquiry into the Meaning of Modern Architecture." Ph.D., Georgia Institute of Technology, 1995. Advisor: John A. Templer

Kim, Sung-Hong. "Visual and Spatial Metaphors of Shop Architecture." Ph.D., Georgia Institute of Technology, 1995. Advisor: John Peponis

Hayes, Richard Lee. "An Image Architecture: Aircraft Hangar Manifestations." Ph.D., Georgia Institute of Technology, 1995. Advisor: Ronald B. Lewcock

Sentosa, Lucas Shindunata. "Continuity and Change in Balinese Dwelling Environments: A Socio-Religious Perspective." Ph.D., Georgia Institute of Technology, 1994. Advisor: Ronald B. Lewcock

Lewis, David Correll. "Revealing the Parthenon's Logos Optikos: A Historical, Optical, and Perceptual Investigation of Twelve Classical Adjustments of Form, Position, and Proportion." Ph.D., Georgia Institute of Technology, 1994. Advisor: John A. Templer

Lee, Jongkeun. "A Phenomenological Inquiry into the Problem of Meaning in Architecture." Ph.D., Georgia Institute of Technology, 1994. Advisor: Libero Andreotti

Hyde, Deborah Hayes. "Architectural Education for Building Safety." Ph.D., Georgia Institute of Technology, 1994. Advisor: John A. Templer

Chen, Hui-Min. "A Critique on Scientific Rationality in the Production of Architecture." Ph.D., Georgia Institute of Technology, 1993. Advisor: Robert T. Segrest

Smith, Kendra Schank. "A New View of Architectural Sketches." Ph.D., Georgia Institute of Technology, 1992. Advisor: Marco Frascari

Garcia Moreno, Beatriz Teresa. "Contextualist Thought and Architecture." Ph.D., Georgia Institute of Technology, 1992. Advisor: John A. Templer

Kenzari, Mohamed Bechir. "A Curious View on Negation and Architectural Creativity." Ph.D., Georgia Institute of Technology, 1991. Advisor: Robert T. Segrest

Vancura, Milan Vladislav. "The Architecture of Czech Cubism." Ph.D., Georgia Institute of Technology, 1990. Advisor: Angel Medina

Jones, Michael Anthony. "Models for Educating Architects in This Century and the Next." Ph.D., Georgia Institute of Technology, 1989. Advisor: Robert T. Segrest

Bloomer, Jennifer Allyn. "Towards an Architecture of Desire: The (S)Crypt of Joyce and Piranesi." Ph.D., Georgia Institute of Technology, 1989. Advisor: Marco Frascari

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