David Leatherbarrow is Professor of Architecture and Chair of the Graduate Group in Architecture at the

University of Pennsylvania School of Design The University of Pennsylvania Stuart Weitzman School of Design is the design school of the University of Pennsylvania, in Philadelphia. It offers degrees in architecture, landscape architecture, city and regional planning, historic preservation ...

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

, where he has taught since 1984. He received his B.Arch. from the

University of Kentucky The University of Kentucky (UK, UKY, or U of K) is a Public University, public Land-grant University, land-grant research university in Lexington, Kentucky. Founded in 1865 by John Bryan Bowman as the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Kentu ...

and holds a Ph.D. in Art from the

University of Essex The University of Essex is a public university, public research university in Essex, England. Established by royal charter in 1965, Essex is one of the original plate glass university, plate glass universities. Essex's shield consists of the an ...

. He has also taught in

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

, at

Cambridge University , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

and the

University of Westminster , mottoeng = The Lord is our Strength , type = Public , established = 1838: Royal Polytechnic Institution 1891: Polytechnic-Regent Street 1970: Polytechnic of Central London 1992: University of Westminster , endowment = £5.1 million ...

(formerly the

Polytechnic of Central London , mottoeng = The Lord is our Strength , type = Public , established = 1838: Royal Polytechnic Institution 1891: Polytechnic-Regent Street 1970: Polytechnic of Central London 1992: University of Westminster , endowment = £5.1 million ...

). He is primarily known for his contributions to the field of

architectural phenomenology Phenomenology in architecture can be understood as a discursive and realist attempt to understand and embody the philosophical insights of phenomenology. According to Dan Zahavi:Phenomenology shares the conviction that the critical stance proper ...

. Questions of how architecture appears, how architecture is perceived, and how topography shapes architecture often direct his research. He is influenced by architectural theorists

Dalibor Vesely Dalibor Vesely (19 June 1934 – 31 March 2015) was a Czech-born architectural historian and theorist who was influential through his teaching and writing in promoting the role of hermeneutics and phenomenology as part of the discourse of archit ...

and

Joseph Rykwert Joseph Rykwert CBE (born 1926) is Paul Philippe Cret Professor Emeritus of Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania, and one of the foremost architectural historians and critics of his generation. He has spent most of his working life in th ...

, who both taught at Essex in the 1970s and also influenced

Alberto Pérez-Gómez Alberto Pérez-Gómez (born 24 December 1949) is an architectural historian and theorist known for taking a phenomenological approach to architecture. He lives in Montreal. Biography Born December 24, 1949, in Mexico City he graduated as an eng ...

and numerous other scholars in the field of architectural phenomenology and history.

Select list of Leatherbarrow's writings

*''The Roots of Architectural Invention: Site, Enclosure, Materials'', Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1993. *''On Weathering: The Life of Buildings in Time'', with

Mohsen Mostafavi Mohsen Mostafavi (born 1954 in Isfahan) is an Iranian-American architect and educator. Mostafavi is currently the Alexander and Victoria Wiley Professor of Design at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. From 2008 through 2019, Mostafavi served ...

, Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press 1993. *''Uncommon Ground: Architecture, Technology, and Topography'', Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press 2000. *''Topographical Stories: Studies in Landscape and Architecture'', Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press 2004. *''Surface Architecture'', with

, Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press 2005. *''Architecture Oriented Otherwise'', New Haven: Princeton Architectural Press 2008.Mention of Architecture Oriented Otherwise at the Princeton Architectural Press website
/ref> *''Twentieth-Century Architecture, Companion to the History of Architecture Vol. 4'', with Alexander Eisenschmidt, Chichester, West Sussex: Wiley 2017. *''Three Cultural Ecologies'', with Richard Wesley, London: Routledge 2017. *''Building Time: Architecture, Event, and Experience'', Bloomsbury Visual Arts 2020.

Awards & Recognitions

*''Topaz Medallion for Excellence in Architectural Education'', awarded by AIA and ACSA, 2020.

External links

University of Pennsylvania faculty page
* (bibliography)

References

American architecture writers American male non-fiction writers American architectural historians University of Kentucky alumni University of Pennsylvania faculty Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Architectural theoreticians American art historians {{US-arch-historian-stub