Dell Upton

Dell Thayer Upton (born 1949)[1] is an architectural historian. He is chair of the Department of Art History at University of California, Los Angeles, and Professor Emeritus of Architecture at University of California, Berkeley. He previously has taught at the University of Virginia.

Dell Upton
Nationality	American
Alma mater	Colgate University Brown University
Occupation	Architect
Signature
Architectural History Urban History Art History

Upton studied history and English as an undergraduate at Colgate University.[2][3] He earned an M.A. and Ph.D. in American Civilization at Brown University.[4][5]

He taught for many years at UC Berkeley, before moving in 2002 to the University of Virginia, where he was David A. Harrison Professor of Anthropology and Architecture, with appointments in the School of Architecture and the department of anthropology.[6][7] He now teaches at University of California, Los Angeles as Professor of Architectural History and is chair of the Department of Art History.

Upton authored the 1998 textbook, Architecture in the United States for the Oxford University Press' Oxford Art History series. Upton has written extensively on vernacular landscapes of the American built environment. His work on Colonial and Antebellum American include: Another City: Urban Life and Urban Spaces in the New American Republic (2008. New Haven: Yale University Press), Holy Things and Profane: Anglican Parish Churches in Colonial Virginia (1986. Cambridge: MIT Press), Madaline: Love and Survival in Antebellum New Orleans (1996. Athens: University of Georgia Press), and America’s Architectural Roots: Ethnic Groups That Built America (Washington: Preservation Press). As a founding member of the Vernacular Architecture Forum, Upton has published on materialist history and theory as separate from canonical architectural histories. Works such as Common Places: Readings in American Vernacular Architecture, with John Michael Vlach (Athens: University of Georgia Press) and "Architecture History or Landscape History?" in the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians. He wrote the chief essay for the Metropolitan Museum of Art's exhibition "Art and the Empire City: New York, 1825–1861" in 2000.[8][9]

Awards

• Society of Architectural Historians Spiro Kostof Book Prize
• Society of Architectural Historians Alice Davis Hitchock Award
• American Studies Association John Hope Franklin Publication Prize
• Vernacular Architecture Forum Abbott Lowell Cummings Award (in 1986 & 2008)[10]

References

1. Middle name and birth year are from the Copyright Catalog of the United States Copyright Office, entry for Early vernacular architecture in southeastern Virginia (1981). http://cocatalog.loc.gov/
2. "Architectural History and the CED Idea, 50th Anniversary Celebration". UC Berkeley Events. Retrieved 22 May 2014.
3. "Faculty Page". UC Berkeley, CED. Retrieved 22 May 2014.
4. "Faculty Page". UC Berkeley, CED. Retrieved 22 May 2014.
5. "Architectural History and the CED Idea, 50th Anniversary Celebration". UC Berkeley Events. Retrieved 22 May 2014.
6. "U.Va. Professor Dell Upton to Give Public Talk on New Civil Rights Monuments". UVA Today. University of Virginia. Retrieved 21 June 2014.
7. "Architectural History and the CED Idea, 50th Anniversary Celebration". UC Berkeley Events. Retrieved 22 May 2014.
8. "UCLA Faculty Bio". Retrieved 22 May 2014.
9. Art and the empire city : New York, 1825–1861, a 2000 exhibition catalog from the Metropolitan Museum of Art libraries, online as PDF
10. "UCLA Faculty Bio". Retrieved 22 May 2014.

Further reading

• Voorsanger, Catherine Hoover; Howat, John K., eds. (2000). Art and the empire city : New York, 1825–1861. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.