Joseph Clarke is an American architectural historian and critic currently pursuing a Ph.D. at Yale University. His experience includes project research and writing at the architecture firm of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill; teaching design studio at the University of Cincinnati; freelance writing and speaking about the history and future of the built environment; and working as a designer at Eisenman Architects and other concept-driven offices. He received a Master of Architecture degree from the University of Cincinnati in 2006. Because good architectural judgment requires broad social and intellectual experience, he’s also done plenty of looking, listening, reading, drawing, thinking, drinking, talking, and traveling.
WRITINGS
2009. “Infrastructure for Souls” in Triple Canopy 6. Tracing the parallel architectural histories of the American megachurch and the corporate-organizational complex.
2009. “Town & Country” in Frieze (May 2009). As rural immigrants flock to Chinese cities, progressive architects are developing new models for mass housing.
2009. “Polemics of a Cybernetic Future” at core.form-ula. How Philip Beesley’s robotic architectural installations imagine fantastic and sometimes terrifying intersections of technology and organic life.
2008. “Specters of a Young Earth” in Triple Canopy 4. The dinosaurs at Kentucky’s Creation Museum are stalking evolution, reason, and the American city.
2008. “Into a Forest of Script” in Log 12. Analyzing the unconscious of algorithms as a contemporary architectural method.
2008. “Geometry of Progress: Promenade Architecturale at the Philips Pavilion.” Presented at Society of Architectural Historians conference. Analysis of the Philips Pavilion by Le Corbusier and Iannis Xenakis in the context of Xenakis’ contemporaneous musical compositions.
2006. “Observations on Giant Statues” in Log 7.