Arabic

Professor Alan Balfour

Dean, College of Architecture, Georgia Institute of Technology, USA

Alan Balfour is Professor and Dean of the College of Architecture at Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta. He has served as dean in colleges of architecture at Rensselaer in New York and Rice University in Texas, and was chairman of the Architectural Association in London. Educated at Edinburgh and Princeton he is an associate member of the AIA and a member of the Royal Institute of British Architects. Prior to entering academia he practiced architecture in London and New York, and served on the research staff of MIT, and Arthur D. Little.

Alan Balfour's most recent book Creating a Scottish Parliament (Finlay Brown, Edinburgh 2005) offers an intimate exploration of the conceptualization both of the political structure for a devolved Scotland and the architecture that would symbolize and be the instrument for its advancement. In 2002 he completed three books on three world cities; in them the city is viewed as the most tangible residue of the complexity of society's desires. Shanghai was published in 2002 and New York in 2001, (both from Wiley/Academy, London). The first in the series was Berlin published by Academy Editions in 1995, which documents the transformation of Berlin before and after the collapse of the 'Wall', This and an earlier book Berlin: The Politics of Order: 1737-1989 (Rizzoli 1990), received AIA International Book Awards. Other books include Portsmouth (Studio Vista 1970), Rockefeller Center: Architecture as Theater (McGraw-Hill 1978), with contributions to The Edge of the Millennium (Cooper Hewitt 1993), Cities of Artificial Excavation: The Work of Peter Eisenman (Rizzoli International /CCA 1994) and Recovering Landscape (Princeton Architectural Press 1999). His current work is a reflection on religion and reality in the Middle East.

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