External links
- "Robert Craig". New Georgia Encyclopedia. Retrieved 24 December 2025.
- Craig, Robert M. Robert Craig on Georgia Tech Architecture (Video). YouTube. Retrieved 24 December 2025.
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Robert M. Craig | |
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| Education | University of Illinois (M.A.) Cornell University (Ph.D.) |
| Occupations | Architectural historian Professor |
| Employer | Georgia Institute of Technology |
| Known for | Research on Francis Palmer Smith, Bernard Maybeck, and Atlanta architecture |
| Children | 1 |
Robert Michael Craig is an American architectural historian and Professor Emeritus at the Georgia Institute of Technology. [1] [2] He is known for his scholarship on 19th and early 20th-century architecture, including the Arts and Crafts movement, Art Deco, and the work of architects Francis Palmer Smith and Bernard Maybeck. [3] [2]
Craig holds a Master's degree in History from the University of Illinois. [1] In 1973, he became the first recipient of a Ph.D. in the History of Architecture and Urban Development from Cornell University. [1] His doctoral dissertation focused on the work of Bernard Maybeck at Principia College, a topic he continued to research for over thirty years. [4]
Craig served in the United States Navy during the Vietnam War aboard the aircraft carrier USS Intrepid in the late 1960s and was honorably discharged in 1970. [1]
Craig taught the history of architecture at the Georgia Institute of Technology College of Design from 1973 until his retirement in 2011, after which he was named Professor Emeritus. [1] [3] His courses covered American, modern, and medieval architecture, as well as seminars on Frank Lloyd Wright, Atlanta architecture, and the Arts and Crafts movement. [3] He has presented over 160 papers at academic conferences and lectured in the United States, China, Australia, and France. [1]
Craig served as the architecture editor for the Grove Encyclopedia of American Art (2011). [1] He was the editor of the SECAC Review (now Art Inquiries) during the 1980s and helped found the journal XVIII: New Perspectives on the Eighteenth Century. [1] He has held leadership roles in several academic societies, including serving as secretary of the Society of Architectural Historians (SAH) for ten years and as president of the Nineteenth-Century Studies Association (NCSA) and the Southeastern American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (SEASECS). [1] He is a founding member of the Southeast Chapter of the Society of Architectural Historians (SESAH), where he served as treasurer for twenty-four years and as an early president. [1]
Craig is the author of twelve books. [1] His work relies heavily on primary sources, including construction photographs, drawings, and correspondence. [4] He is also a photographer and has provided images for his own books and other scholarly publications. [1] Craig's 1995 book, Atlanta Architecture: Art Deco to Modern Classic, 1929–1959, provides a chronological account of the city's commercial and institutional architecture during the mid-twentieth century. [5] The book categorizes buildings into styles such as Art Deco and Modern Classic, illustrated largely with the author's own photography. [5]
In 2004, Craig published Bernard Maybeck at Principia College: The Art and Craft of Building, which documents the architect's commission for the college in Illinois. [4] The book details the relationship between Maybeck and the client, Frederic Morgan, and challenges earlier scholarly assertions that the project was merely a late "exercise in academic eclecticism." [4]
Craigs 2012 biography work, The Architecture of Francis Palmer Smith: Atlanta's Scholar Architect, chronicles the career of the Beaux-Arts architect who directed Georgia Tech's architecture department from 1909 to 1922. [2] The book covers Smith's partnership with Robert Smith Pringle and their work on notable Atlanta landmarks such as the Rhodes-Haverty Building and the Cathedral of St. Philip. [2]
Craig has lived in Atlanta, Georgia, since 1973. [1] He maintains a summer cottage in Ocean City, Maryland. [1] He is married and has one son and two granddaughters. [1] His hobbies include watercolor painting, folk singing, swimming, and travel. [1] He has also been involved in historic preservation, restoring two houses listed on the National Register of Historic Places. [1]
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