Barry Bergdoll is Meyer Schapiro Professor of art history in the Department of Art History and Archaeology at

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 ...

and from 2007 to 2019 a curator in the Department of Architecture and Design at the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...

, New York, where from 2007 to 2013 he served as

Philip Johnson Philip Cortelyou Johnson (July 8, 1906 – January 25, 2005) was an American architect best known for his works of modern and postmodern architecture. Among his best-known designs are his modernist Glass House in New Canaan, Connecticut; the po ...

Chief Curator of Architecture and Design. He serves, since 2018, as President of the Board of the

Center for Architecture The Center for Architecture is located in the neighborhood of Greenwich Village at 536 LaGuardia Place, between West 3rd Street and Bleecker Street in Manhattan, New York City. The center was designed by architect Andrew Berman and completed ...

in New York City and a member of the Pritzker Architecture Prize jury since 2019.

Education

Bergdoll graduated from

in 1977 and studied at King's College,

Cambridge University The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209 and granted a royal charter by Henry III of England, Henry III in 1231, Cambridge is the world' ...

on a Kellett Fellowship 1977-79 before returning to Columbia to complete his Ph.D in 1986.

Academic career

Bergdoll's chief interest is architectural history, particularly that of France and Germany since 1750. He studies architecture from an art historical approach, however, tying it to history, sociology, and culture. He has studied cultural representation in architecture, the evolution of architecture as a profession, and the intersections between artistic genres such as architecture and film. He has also worked on the problems of museological exhibitions of architecture. Prior to joining MoMA, Bergdoll was the chair of the Department of Art History at Columbia. In 1993, he received a grant from the Graham Foundation for study on the impact of the fall of Communism on architectural teachings in Eastern Europe.

Curation

As a curator, Bergdoll has participated in several major architectural exhibitions, including "Mies in Berlin", shown in New York, Barcelona, and Berlin (2001–03); "Le Panthéon: Symbole des Révolutions" shown in Montreal and Paris in 1989, and "Les Vaudoyers: une dynastie d'architectes" at the Musée d'Orsay in Paris in 1992. On January 1, 2007, Bergdoll succeeded Terence Riley as Chief Curator for Architecture and Design at MoMA. Among the exhibitions he has curated at MoMA since joining in January 2007 are "Lost Vanguard" (2007); "Home Delivery: Fabricating the Modern Dwelling," (2008) which included five full scale prefabricated or digitally fabricated houses on the vacant lot next to the Museum; "Bauhaus" (2009) with Leah Dickerman; "Rising Currents: Projects for New York's Waterfront" (2010); and "Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream" (2012) with Reinhold Martin. The exhibition "Labrouste: La Structure Mise en Lumiere" co-curated with Corine Belier of the Cite de l'Architecture et du Patrimoine and Marc LeCoeur of the Bibliothèque Nationale was shown in Paris (2012–13) and presented at the Museum of Modern Art in Spring 2013, followed by "Le Corbusier: An Atlas of Modern Landscapes," organized with Jean-Louis Cohen. In 2012 Bergdoll was instrumental in bringing the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation archives to MoMA and Columbia; in 2014 he organized a first exhibition based on that archive: "Frank Lloyd Wright and the City," followed by a major exhibition in 2017, "Frank Lloyd Wright at 150: Unpacking the Archive."

Recent works

*''Bauhaus 1919–1933: Workshops for Modernity'' (2009-2010) *''Mies in Berlin'' (2001) *''European Architecture 1750–1890'' (2000) *''Léon Vaudoyer: Historicism in the Age of Industry'' (1994) *''Karl Friedrich Schinkel: An Architecture for Prussia'' (1994)

External links

Columbia University faculty pageBiography at The American Academy in BerlinInterview with Bergdoll

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bergdoll, Barry American art curators American art historians American architectural historians American architecture writers American male non-fiction writers Columbia College (New York) alumni Columbia University faculty Living people People associated with the Museum of Modern Art (New York City) Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Columbia Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation faculty Year of birth missing (living people) Slade Professors of Fine Art (University of Cambridge)