Mario Carpo

Mario Carpo

(architectural historian, critic), currently the inaugural Reyner Banham Professor of Architectural History and Theory at University College, London.

Mario Carpo graduated from the University of Florence in 1983 with a degree in architectural history. He was a doctoral researcher at the European University Institute from 1984 to 1987, then an Assistant Professor at the University of Geneva. In 1993 received tenure in France, where he was first assigned to the École d'Architecture de Saint-Etienne, then to the École d'Architecture de Paris-La Villette. He has been a Professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology since 2009, and Vincent Scully Visiting Professor of Architectural History at Yale University since 2010. He was also a visiting professor in several universities in Europe and in the United States, including the University of Geneva, the University of Florence, the University of Copenhagen, Cornell University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Williams College, and Yale University. He was a resident at the American Academy in Rome in 2004, a scholar at the Getty Research Institute in 2000-2001, and a visiting scholar at the Clark Art Institute in 2000. He was the head of the Study Centre at the Centre Canadien d'Architecture in Montréal between 2002 and 2005.

Mario Carpo's research and publications focus on the relationship between architectural theory, cultural history, and the history of media and information technology. His publications include The Alphabet and the Algorithm (MIT Press, 2011), Architecture in the Age of Printing (MIT Press, 2001; also translated into other languages), a commentary on Leon Battista Alberti's Descriptio Urbis Romae (2000, in French; and 2007, in English, co-authored); La maschera e il modello (1993); Metodo e ordini nella teoria architettonica dei primi moderni (1993). He co-edited a volume of essays on the technologies of architectural representations (Perspective, Projections, Projet, 2003, published in English as Perspective, Projections and Design, 2007). His recent essays and articles are published in the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Log, Grey Room, L’Architecture d'aujourd’hui, Arquitectura Viva, Arch+, Architectural Design, Lotus International, and Abitare.