Alan Balfour

Alan Balfour (born 1939 in Edinburgh, Scotland) is a writer, academic and education leader who has been Dean at the leading architecture schools in the US and UK including the Georgia Tech College of Architecture, Rice University, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and chairman of Architectural Association School of Architecture. He had held faculty positions at MIT and Harvard.

Early Life & Education

Architect, author, and educator Alan Balfour was born in Edinburgh in March 1939. His childhood was shaped by war and absence He was frequently looked after by a great aunt born in 1876.

He attended The Royal High School in Edinburgh one of Scotland’s oldest public schools providing a classical education in a classical setting. He studied architecture at the Edinburgh College of Art in 1961 (now part of Edinburgh University) where he was awarded the Edinburgh Silver Medal for Civic Design.

He did graduate study in architecture at Princeton University on a Fulbright Scholar. Though he was taught by mow internationally famous architects including Louis Kahn, Michael Graves, and Peter Eisenman, the most lasting influence was the teaching of three very different scholars –philosopher Arthur Szathmary, urban sociologist Gerald Breese, and sociologist Marion Levy. He has stated that all in their own way have had a lasting impact on how why writes and how writes. He received a Master of Fines Arts Degree in the summer of 1965.

Researcher & Educator

In 1970 he joined the professional staff of what was then the world's oldest consulting company, Arthur D. Little, Inc, He was associated director in a HUD-funded, evaluation of "Project Rehab", which looked at the results of housing rehabilitation in 14 cities. And from 1972-1974 he part of the Solar Climate Control Industry Study, led by the celebrated solar engineer, Peter Glaser.

In the fall of ’74 he taught a graduate studio at MIT based on the ADL research. Following this he was asked to manage the Architecture Education Study (AES), a project of MIT and Harvard for the Consortium of Eastern Schools of Architecture. Its objective was to strengthen and to some degree rationalize the teaching of architecture. He saw the project to its conclusion and the results published.

He has taught and led several Schools and Colleges over the years. 1977-89 as director of the graduate program, at Georgia Tech in Atlanta. He initiated a program that invited significant emerging architects to work with the students in building an experimental structure. Among those involved were Bernard Tschumi, and Daniel Libeskind, the most spectacular result was the construction of John Hejduk’s Houses of Suicide.

From 1989-91 he served as the William Ward Watkin Dean of Architecture at Rice University in Houston Texas.

In 1991, he was elected Chairman of the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London. The task he faced was to renew a culture of radical originality and creativity that had defined the school from the late 60's and 70's. In his short time at the AA he attracted new design teachers such as Cedric Price, Ben Van Berkel, Alejandro Zeara-Polo, Farshid Moussavi, Don Bates, and appointed theorist Jeffrey Kipnis to establish and lead the Graduate Design Program, and philosopher Mark Cousins to lead the Doctoral program in History and Theory. His actions led to increased enrolment which paid of the debts.

It was an exhilarating and exhausting task so after just four years he returned to the US, as Dean of the School of Architecture, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) where he served from 1996-2007. During his years at RPI the Institute was under the inspired leadership of Dr Shirley Ann Jackson, and he played a central role in the development of EMPAC, Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center.

Balfour was the year 2000 recipient of the Topaz Medalian, the highest recognition given in North America to an educator in architecture.

In 2008 he returned to Georgia Tech as Dean of the College of Design, retiring in 2013. Also, in 2013 he names Advisory Professor in the College of Architecture, and Urban Planning, Tongji University, Shanghai.

Author

A constant theme in all of Balfour’s writing is the relationship between the physical character of cities, and their buildings and prevalent desires in the culture. He views all man-made reality as landscapes of desire. This is seen at its most developed in the books Berlin: Politics of Order and Solomon ‘s Temple. His books are in equal measure architectural and social histories.

Books

PORTSMOUTH (Studio Vista, London, 1970
ROCKEFELLER CENTER, Architecture as Theater, (McGraw-Hill, 1978)
BERLIN: The Politics of Order: 1737-1989; (Rizzoli 1990) This and the later book on the city, received AIA International Book Awards
BERLIN, World City (Academy Editions London, and Ernst & Sohn, Berlin, 1995)
SHANGHAI, (Wiley/Academy, 2000)
NEW YORK, (Wiley/Academy, 2001)
CREATING A SCOTTISH PARLIAMENT introduction by David McCrone (Finlay Brown, Edinburgh, 2005)
Solomon's Temple: Myth, Conflict, and Faith (Wiley-Blackwell, 2013)
THE WALLS OF JERUSALEM, Preserving the Past Controlling the Future, [1](Wiley-Blackwell. 2019)
CLASSICAL EDINBURGH, A City Divided (Anthem Press, 2023)

Articles & Essay

Recovering Landscape edited with James Corner, Princeton Architectural Press, Princeton, 1999.
Contributions to Cities of Artificial Excavation: The Work of Peter Eisenman 1978-1988, CCA Montreal, Rizzoli International Publications, New York, 1994.
Contributions to The Edge of the Millennium Whitney Library of Design, New York, 1993.
Berlin: The Politics of Order, 1737- 1989, Rizzoli, New York, 1990. Winner of the AIA International Book Award, 1991.
Contributions to Contemporary Architects, St. Martins Press, New York, 1984, revised 1987.
Architectural Education Study, MIT, Boston, 1981, editor.
Rockefeller Center: Architecture as Theater, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1978.
Portsmouth, Studio Vista, London, 1970.
Contributions to Breakthrough to the Hudson, Ottinger Foundation, New York, 1964.

Essays have appeared in the Harvard GSD News, the Graz publication MDA, Dokumente zur Architektur 7 and the Journal of Architectural Education (JAE). His Harvard studio from 1996 was published in Studio Works 4 approaches.

He has served on the editorial boards of JAE, Cite, and was briefly chairman of the board of the Atlanta based arts magazine, Art Papers. From 1991 -1995 Balfour re1designed the Architectural Association’s annual publications and was publisher and had overall editorial responsibility for AA Publications, he also led the editorial board of AA Files.