Mark Jarzombek, professor of the history and theory of architecture, has been named associate dean of the School of Architecture and Planning. He succeeds Diane Davis, professor of political sociology.
Jarzombek (Ph.D. 1986) previously served as chair of diversity outreach efforts for the department of architecture. In his new role, a two-year appointment, he will focus on developing a strategy for the school's diversity outreach efforts and on consolidating the school's arts offerings and integrating those offerings into MIT's larger academic community.
"The school has made a major commitment to diversity," says Jarzombek. Â "With the hiring of Robbin Chapman, with the staging of our recent conference on black architects and with our recent outreach to black alumni, the first steps have been taken; now we want to build on that to establish a long-term trajectory for diversity."
Chapman is manager of diversity recruiting in the dean's office; Jarzombek will work with her on diversity initiatives.
Jarzombek will be working with the faculty in the Visual Arts Program as they "rethink their curriculum in light of ongoing advances in media technology, reevaluating their position in the department and in the school," he said.
Jarzombek has taught in the Department of Architecture since 1995, working on a range of historical topics from the Renaissance to the modern. He served as director of the department's program in history, theory and criticism of architecture and art from 1996-99 and again from 2002 to the present. He was previously associate professor, history of architecture and urbanism, at Cornell.
Jarzombek studied at the University of Chicago from 1970-73 and received his architectural diploma from Zurich's Eidgenossische Technische Hochschule in 1980. In 1993 he was a fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, N.J. and in 2002, a resident fellow at the Canadian Center for Architecture.
In 2006, Jarzombek published "A Global History of Architecture" (Wiley Press), with co-author Vikram Prakash and the noted illustrator Francis D.K. Ching. His earlier books include "On Leon Battista Alberti, His Literary and Aesthetic Theories" (MIT Press, 1990); and "The Psychologizing of Modernity, Art, Architecture and History" (Cambridge University Press, 2000). He is currently working on essays about architecture and modernity.
Jarzombek has received numerous awards for his research as well as for the various international conferences that he has organized. He has published in a wide range of journals including the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Assemblage and Renaissance Studies.
A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on September 12, 2007 (download PDF).
