The Society of Architectural Historians (SAH) is an international not-for-profit organization that promotes the study and preservation of the built environment worldwide. Based in Chicago in the United States, the Society's 3,500 members include architectural historians, architects, landscape architects, preservationists, students, professionals in allied fields and the interested public.
Vincent Joseph Scully Jr. was an American art historian who was a Sterling Professor of the History of Art in Architecture at Yale University, and the author of several books on the subject. Architect Philip Johnson once described Scully as "the most influential architectural teacher ever." His lectures at Yale were known to attract casual visitors and packed houses, and regularly received standing ovations. He was also the distinguished visiting professor in architecture at the University of Miami.
Rudolf Wittkower was a British art historian specializing in Italian Renaissance and Baroque art and architecture, who spent much of his career in London, but was educated in Germany, and later moved to the United States. Despite having a British father who stayed in Germany after his studies, he was born and raised in Berlin.
Rexford G. Newcomb was an American architectural historian.
The Alice Davis Hitchcock Book Award, established in 1949, by the Society of Architectural Historians, annually recognizes "the most distinguished work of scholarship in the history of architecture published by a North American scholar." The oldest of the six different publication awards given annually by the Society, it is named after the mother of architectural historian Henry-Russell Hitchcock.
Henry-Russell Hitchcock was an American architectural historian, and for many years a professor at Smith College and New York University. His writings helped to define the characteristics of modernist architecture.
Elizabeth Barlow Rogers is an environmentalist, landscape preservationist, author of numerous books and essays, and a former park administrator. Her most notable achievement was her role in the revitalization of New York City's Central Park in the 1980s and 1990s. In 1980, Rogers helped found the Central Park Conservancy, a not-for-profit corporation formed to organize private sector support for the restoration and renewed management of the park. She served as the Conservancy's first president from its founding until 1995.
Alberto Pérez-Gómez is an architectural historian and theorist known for taking a phenomenological approach to architecture. He lives in Montreal.
William J. R. Curtis is an architectural historian whose writings have focused on twentieth century architecture. Curtis seems particularly interested in broadening the "canon" to include a wider range of architects working across the world.
Franklin K. Toker was a Canadian-American professor of the history of art and architecture at the University of Pittsburgh and the author of nine books on the history of art and architecture, ranging from the excavations he conducted under the famed Cathedral of Saint Maria del Fiore, Florence to 21st century American urbanism. A past president of the Society of Architectural Historians, in 1979 Toker was the winner of a Guggenheim Fellowship in Architecture, Planning, & Design.
Mary Miss is an American artist and designer. Her work has crossed boundaries between architecture, landscape architecture, engineering and urban design. Her installations are collaborative in nature: she has worked with scientists, historians, designers, and public administrators. She is primarily interested in how to engage the public in decoding their surrounding environment.
Dell Thayer Upton is an architectural historian. He is emeritus professor at the department of art history at University of California, Los Angeles, and Professor Emeritus of Architecture at the University of California, Berkeley. He had taught previously at the University of Virginia.
Talbot Faulkner Hamlin was an American architect, architectural historian, writer and educator. Ginling College, Peking University, and the Wayland Academy were among his major work projects, particularly in China.
Elain Harwood Hon.FRIBA was a British architectural historian with Historic England and a specialist in post–Second World War English architecture.
D. (Dede) Fairchild Ruggles is a historian of Islamic art and architecture, and a professor in the University of Illinois Department of Landscape Architecture. She is known for her books on Islamic gardens and landscapes, her series of edited volumes on cultural heritage, and her award-winning work in gender history.
William Lloyd MacDonald Jr. was an American architectural historian, specializing in Roman architecture.
Karen M'Closkey is a landscape architect and Associate Professor in the Department of Landscape Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania. Her artistic and academic focus is the relationship between digital media and landscape architecture design, and M'Closkey is considered one of the leaders in this subfield. She is also the co-founder of PEG Office of Landscape + Architecture, a Philadelphia design and research firm.
Kathryn A. Morrison is a British architectural historian.
Eve Blau is a historian and scholar who teaches at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University as a Professor of the History and Theory of Urban Form and Design, as well as Director of Research. Blau has contributed to scholarship on the history of architecture and urban design. In 2015 she received the Victor Adler State Prize from the Austrian Ministry of Science, Research, and Economy for her work on Red Vienna and her book The Architecture of Red Vienna: 1919-1934. The Victor Adler State Prize is given for scholarship that is distinguished by its interdisciplinary breadth, use of innovative methods, contemporary historical questions, and that is widely published. In 2018, she was named Fellow of the Society of Architectural Historians and in 2022, she was inducted into the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.
Peter H. Christensen is the Arthur Satz Professor of the Humanities at and Associate Dean of the University of Rochester College of Arts Sciences and Engineering. He has held a Guggenheim Fellowship and is a former member of the Institute for Advanced Study. He is also the Ani and Mark Gabrellian Director of the Humanities Center at the University of Rochester. He has been visiting faculty at Cornell University and serves on the board of the Society of Architectural Historians. He is the editor for the "Humanities in the World" series at the University of Rochester Press.
