Robert E. Somol Jr. is an architectural theorist currently serving as the director of the School of Architecture at the

University of Illinois at Chicago The University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) is a Public university, public research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its campus is in the Near West Side, Chicago, Near West Side community area, adjacent to the Chicago Loop. The second campus esta ...

. His writing has been centrally-linked to "post-critical" architectural theory at the turn of the 21st century; the concept is similar to that of

postcritique In literary criticism and cultural studies, postcritique is the attempt to find new forms of reading and interpretation that go beyond the methods of critique, critical theory, and ideological criticism. Such methods have been characterized as a ...

found in literary criticism.

Education and career

He holds an A.B. from

Brown University Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...

(1982), a J.D. from

Harvard Law School Harvard Law School (Harvard Law or HLS) is the law school of Harvard University, a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest continuously operating law school in the United States. Each class ...

, and a Ph.D. in the history of culture from the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

(1997). Previously a professor in the Knowlton School of Architecture at the

Ohio State University The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best publ ...

, he has taught design and theory at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

, the University of Illinois at Chicago,

Rice University William Marsh Rice University (Rice University) is a Private university, private research university in Houston, Houston, Texas. It is on a 300-acre campus near the Houston Museum District and adjacent to the Texas Medical Center. Rice is ranke ...

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

, the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

, and the

Harvard Graduate School of Design The Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) is the graduate school of design at Harvard University, a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It offers master's and doctoral programs in architecture, landscape architecture, urban ...

. Somol was formerly a principal at the

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

architecture firm P XS. He is the co-designer of "off-use," an award-winning studio and residence in Los Angeles (2002) that "combines the speculative discipline of modernism with the material excesses of mass culture." He is also a member of the Research Board of the

Berlage Institute The Berlage Institute was an independent unaccredited postgraduate school of architecture in Amsterdam and Rotterdam, the Netherlands, that operated in 1990-2012. Named after the Dutch architect Hendrik Petrus Berlage, the Berlage Institute had an i ...

Rotterdam Rotterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Rotte'') is the second largest city and municipality in the Netherlands. It is in the province of South Holland, part of the North Sea mouth of the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta, via the ''"N ...

. He was the guest editor for volume five of the contemporary architecture journal ''

Log Log most often refers to: * Trunk (botany), the stem and main wooden axis of a tree, called logs when cut ** Logging, cutting down trees for logs ** Firewood, logs used for fuel ** Lumber or timber, converted from wood logs * Logarithm, in mathe ...

'' and served as a member of its editorial board, ''ANY'', which explored the cultural role of architecture and its relationships to other disciplines.

Writing

His writings, which have appeared in publications ranging from '' Assemblage'' to ''

Wired ''Wired'' (stylized as ''WIRED'') is a monthly American magazine, published in print and online editions, that focuses on how emerging technologies affect culture, the economy, and politics. Owned by Condé Nast, it is headquartered in San Fra ...

'', focus on modernism and its modes of repetition, the emergence of the diagram in postwar architecture, landscape and interior urbanism, and the criticism of contemporary architectural practices and pedagogy.

The Post-critical Turn

His writing has been centrally-linked to the "post-critical turn" in architectural theory and culture. While firmly contextualized within the discourse of architecture theory, the "turn" shares similarities to the idea of

found in literary criticism. Somols most notable contribution to this discourse came via his widely-cited essay, co-authored with

Sarah Whiting Sarah M. Whiting (born 1964) is an American architect, critic, and educator. Whiting is currently Dean and Josep Lluís Sert Professor of Architecture at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, in addition to being a founding partner o ...

, "Notes Around the Doppler Effect and Other Moods of Modernism," published by MIT's ''Perspecta'' journal in 2002. Observers have dubbed the essay the "the true birth certificate of post-criticality," and that its thesis attempted to commit "symbolic 'patricide' on the previous generation of theorists whose discourse dominated the pages of ''Oppositions'' and ''Assemblage'' in the 1970s and 1980s." As architectural historian Robert Cowherd describes, "Somol and Whiting proceed within the recognisable framework of theory while venturing beyond the critical autonomy of a ‘hot’ avant-garde to examine a set o f ‘cool’ projects with an eye towards their performance in solving (non-theoretical) problems in the world of everyday experience." The term is often also tied to the architectural theorist Michael Speaks and the architect and writer,

Rem Koolhaas Remment Lucas Koolhaas (; born 17 November 1944) is a Dutch architect, architectural theorist, urbanist and Professor in Practice of Architecture and Urban Design at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University. He is often cited as a re ...

Bibliography

Books

*Somol, R.E. (ed.) ''Autonomy and Ideology: Positioning an Avant-Garde in America'' (Monacelli Press, 1997)

Articles and Essays

*Somol, R.E. and Whiting, Sarah. "Notes around the Doppler Effect and Other Moods of Modernism." ''Perspecta'' 33 (2002): 72–77. *Somol, R.E. "Green Dots 101." ''Hunch'' 11 (2007): 28–37. *Somol, R.E. "12 Reasons to Get Back in Shape." In ''Content'', edited by Office of Metropolitan Architecture. and Rem Koolhaas. Köln: Taschen, 2004.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Somol, Robert Somol Somol Somol Somol Somol Living people Rice University faculty University of Michigan faculty Columbia University faculty Harvard University faculty UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture faculty Year of birth missing (living people)