Mitchell Schwarzer is a historian who writes on architecture and the built environment. He is Professor of Architectural and Urban History in the Department of the History of Art and Visual Culture at

California College of the Arts California College of the Arts (CCA) is a private art school in San Francisco, California. It was founded in Berkeley, California in 1907 and moved to a historic estate in Oakland, California in 1922. In 1996 it opened a second campus in San ...

. His wife Marjorie is a professor of

museum studies Museology or museum studies is the study of museums. It explores the history of museums and their role in society, as well as the activities they engage in, including curating, preservation, public programming, and education. Terminology The ...

Biography

Mitchell was born in 1957 to Sigmund and Genia Schwarzer, Polish Holocaust survivors, at the

Norton Air Force Base Norton Air Force Base (1942–1994) was a United States Air Force facility east of downtown San Bernardino in San Bernardino County, California. Overview For the majority of its operational lifetime, Norton was a logistics depot and heavy-l ...

hospital in

San Bernardino, California San Bernardino (; Spanish language, Spanish for Bernardino of Siena, "Saint Bernardino") is a city and county seat of San Bernardino County, California, United States. Located in the Inland Empire region of Southern California, the city had a ...

. His family then moved to an apartment in

Queens, New York Queens is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Queens County, in the U.S. state of New York. Located on Long Island, it is the largest New York City borough by area. It is bordered by the borough of Brooklyn at the western tip of Long Is ...

, and eventually a ranch house in Manhasset Hills on Long Island. He attended Denton Avenue Elementary School, Shelter Rock Junior High School, and graduated from

Herricks High School Herricks High School is a four-year comprehensive public high school with 1450 students accredited by the New York State Board of Regents and the Middle States Association. The school is located in Searingtown, New York, 20 miles east of Manhattan ...

in 1975. Subsequently, he received his BA from

Washington University Washington University in St. Louis (WashU or WUSTL) is a private research university with its main campus in St. Louis County, and Clayton, Missouri. Founded in 1853, the university is named after George Washington. Washington University is ...

in 1979 (including a junior year abroad program in

Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico ...

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

), and his Masters in

City Planning Urban planning, also known as town planning, city planning, regional planning, or rural planning, is a technical and political process that is focused on the development and design of land use and the built environment, including air, water, ...

from

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

in 1981. Upon graduation, Schwarzer worked for an environmental consulting firm in the

San Francisco Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Gov ...

and later the San Francisco Department of City Planning where he was one of the authors of the Downtown Plan (1985). In 1986, he began doctoral study in the History, Theory and Criticism of Architecture at the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern t ...

, and received his Ph.D. in 1991. While researching his dissertation on

Adolf Loos Adolf Franz Karl Viktor Maria Loos (; 10 December 1870 – 23 August 1933) was an Austrian and Czechoslovak architect, influential European theorist, and a polemicist of modern architecture. He was an inspiration to Modern architecture, mod ...

he lived for a year as a

Fulbright scholar The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States Cultural Exchange Programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people o ...

in Vienna, Austria. Schwarzer's first academic position was at the

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

, where he taught at the art history department from 1991 to 1995. He began full-time teaching at

in 1996, and co-founded the school's Masters Program in Visual Criticism (now called Visual and Critical Studies). He has taught lecture classes on the history of architecture and art as well as seminars on architectural, urban, and landscape theory,

aesthetics Aesthetics, or esthetics, is a branch of philosophy Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, Epistemology, knowledge, Ethics, values, Philosophy of ...

cultural criticism Culture () is an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, and habits of the individuals in these groups ...

, the

avant garde The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical ...

visual perception Visual perception is the ability to interpret the surrounding environment through photopic vision (daytime vision), color vision, scotopic vision (night vision), and mesopic vision (twilight vision), using light in the visible spectrum refl ...

, and film and literature of the city. He has lectured widely in the United States and given talks in Austria, Canada, China, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Great Britain, the Netherlands and Vietnam.

Books

*''Hella Town: Oakland's History of Development and Disruption"", University of California Press (2021) *''Architecture of the San Francisco Bay Area: History and Guide'', William Stout (2006) *''Zoomscape: Architecture in Motion and Media'', Princeton Architectural Press (2004) *''Architecture and Design: SF'', Understanding Business (1998) *''German Architectural Theory and the Search for Modern Identity'', Cambridge University Press (1995)

External links

Schwarzer's faculty page at the California College of the Arts.
* https://placesjournal.org/author/mitchell-schwarzer/?cn-reloaded=1 * https://www.linkedin.com/in/mitchell-schwarzer-42b83019/ {{DEFAULTSORT:Schwarzer, Mitchell American architectural historians American male non-fiction writers Living people Harvard Graduate School of Design alumni 1957 births California College of the Arts faculty People from San Bernardino, California People from Queens, New York Washington University in St. Louis alumni MIT School of Architecture and Planning alumni University of Illinois Chicago faculty People from Manhasset, New York Historians from New York (state) Historians from California Herricks High School alumni