Jonathan Massey

Jonathan Massey is a historian of modern architecture. He trained in architecture at Princeton and UCLA, then worked in the offices of Dagmar Richter, Frank Gehry, and others. After completing a doctoral degree in 2001, Massey joined the faculty at Syracuse University, where he teaches courses including a global survey of architecture since 1500, lecture courses on American architecture, and seminars on Buckminster Fuller, space and sexuality, and organicism in modern architecture. He currently chairs the Bachelor of Architecture program, ranked among the top two undergraduate professional architecture degrees in the nation.

Massey's research examines the ways architecture mediates power by giving form to civil society, shaping social relationships, and regulating consumption. His articles have focused on architecture and political reform; ornament and sumptuary regulation; and the roots of sustainable design in the work of Buckminster Fuller. His book _Crystal and Arabesque: Claude Bragdon, Ornament, and Modern Architecture_ examines the techniques through which American modernists engaged the new media, audiences, and problems of mass society.

Massey is currently writing a book-length study of organicism in modern and contemporary architecture. With colleagues at Syracuse, he is also developing a digital edition of the drawings and papers of Marcel Breuer and testing the potential for digital media to sponsor new modes of collaborative research, teaching, and learning across disciplines.