Draft:Paul Emmons (Architect)

Paul Emmons (1957-) is an architect, professor, and author best known for his writings on the history and theory of architectural drawing practices. Currently, at the Washington-Alexandria Architecture Center (WAAC) of Virginia Tech, Emmons is the Patrick and Nancy Lathrop Professor of Architecture. He also serves as the Associate Dean of Graduate Studies for the College of Architecture, Arts, and Design, and chairs the History and Theory track at WAAC of the Ph.D. program in Architecture and Design Research.

Emmons' research is primarily focused on the history and theory of architectural practices, with a special emphasis on issues of drawing and representation. His contributions in this area have been presented internationally through numerous lectures, conferences, and publications. Among his most notable books are: Drawing Imagining Building: Embodiment in Architectural Drawing Practices (Routledge, 2020), his co-editing of [https://www.routledge.com/Ceilings-and-Dreams-The-Architecture-of-Levity/Emmons-Goffi-La-Coe/p/book/9781138479388#:~:text=The%20twenty%20essays%20in%20this,to%20unlock%20the%20architectural%20imagination. Ceilings and Dreams: The Architecture of Levity (Routledge, 2019)] and Confabulations: Storytelling in Architecture (Routledge, 2018), and his Ph.D. dissertation The Image of Function: Architectural Diagrams in Handbooks and Normative Practices in the Twentieth Century (University of Pennsylvania, 2003). He has also authored numerous journal articles and book chapters that explore various facets of architectural theory and practice.

In his teaching role at Virginia Tech, Emmons leads upper-division undergraduate and graduate design studios and theory seminars. His seminars cover diverse topics, including "Word & Image: The Construction of Architectural Treatises" and "The Mirror of Design," reflecting his deep engagement with architectural education.

In addition to his academic pursuits, Emmons is a registered architect who practiced architecture full-time for more than a dozen years. Since 2000, devoting his time primarily in academia, he continues to undertake creative projects often in collaboration with his sister, artist Carol Emmons. His career demonstrates a profound commitment to theoretical and practical dimensions of architecture, making his contributions to architectural history, theory, and representation both well-recognized and influential in shaping the field.

Education
Emmons earned a Ph.D. in Architecture from the University of Pennsylvania in 2003. He studied with Marco Frascari, Joseph Rykwert and David Leatherbarrow as well as William Braham, John Dixon Hunt, and visiting faculty including Ruggero Pierantoni and Ivan Illich. He continued to work closely with Frascari at Virginia Tech. He received a Master of Architecture degree from the University of Minnesota and became a registered architect in the State of Minnesota in 1987. Before his architectural education, Emmons earned a Bachelor of Business Administration from the University of Wisconsin – Eau Claire. His undergraduate experience included attending Sigtunastiftelsen Folkhögskola near Stockholm, Sweden.

Career
Paul Emmons has constructed a distinguished career in architecture, contributing significantly to both academic and professional spheres. Since 1998, he has been a key figure at Virginia Tech, especially within the Washington-Alexandria Architecture Center (WAAC). He has inspired students in undergraduate and graduate design studios to explore materials and design’s role in shaping communities and liveable environments. He has introduced graduate students to the foundational theories of architecture in seminars such as "Word & Image: Ten Treatises" and "The Mirror of Design." Moreover, he has supervised both thesis and dissertation students, further demonstrating his commitment to guiding the next generation of architects and scholars in the field. Emmons assumed leadership of the PhD. program founded by Marco Frascari after Frascari departed to head the architecture program at Carleton University. Emmons was named the Patrick and Nancy Lathrop Professor of Architecture in recognition of his capacity to transpose architectural history and theory into contemporary contexts and to envision futures for the architectural discipline in meaningful ways. Beyond his contributions at Virginia Tech, Emmons has also served as an external reviewer for graduate students at universities in North America and Europe. Emmons also organizes international Frascari Symposia to continue developing Frascari’s research agenda.

In addition to teaching and research, Emmons has served as Associate Dean of Graduate Studies since 2018. Among his contributions, Emmons chaired the committee for the creation of the new College of Architecture, Arts, and Design and instituted and organized the college's Research Forum to promote and share faculty research.

Throughout his career in academia, Emmons has pursued research that focuses on the history and theory of architectural practices with an emphasis on drawing and representation. His work has led to numerous presentations at international conferences and a wide range of publications in academic journals and books. He has presented keynote lectures at numerous institutions around the world. He also has served as editor and member of editorial boards for journals such as Drawing Matter Journal and Journal of Architectural Education as well as manuscript reviewer for publishing houses.

Before his long-term role at Virginia Tech, Emmons held teaching positions at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Minnesota. Internationally, he was the Haas Visiting Professor at Newcastle University in the UK.

Professor Emmons’ work is grounded on professional practice, informed by history and theory, and focused on advancing human well-being. He practiced at several architecture firms of various sizes in Minneapolis, MN, from 1983-1995 including Meyer, Scherer and Rockcastle, Thorbeck & Lambert, and Ellerbe Becket. Clients he worked with include leading institutions, such as the Minneapolis Public Library, the Science Museum of Minnesota, and numerous universities including: University of Minnesota, University of Chicago, University of Virginia, University of California-Berkeley and Yale University.

Since moving full-time into academia, Emmons has continued a small practice of competition entries, residences, and creative works including a collaboration with his sister, artist Carol Emmons. This work has resulted in exhibitions at galleries such as the Philadelphia Art Alliance and has been reviewed and published. The pair installed a permanent piece, competitively selected titled Dwelling in the Plan at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee School of Architecture and Urban Planning Building. The ideas embodied in the works often derive from and inform his theoretical writings. Emmons has also organized and curated several exhibitions at WAAC, both group shows and individual exhibitions of drawings by architects such as Douglas Darden and Perry Kulper.

Additionally, Emmons has been active in community service and professional organizations. He has been awarded the Exemplary Service Award by the City of Falls Church, Virginia, and served as the city’s Chair of the Architecture Advisory Board. His professional contributions also include his role as an expert consultant for the National Architectural Accreditation Board and as a speaker and awards juror for the American Institute of Architects. This blend of academic, professional, and community service roles highlights Emmons’ comprehensive engagement with the field of architecture, underlining his significant impact on both theoretical and practical aspects of the discipline.

Research and Contribution
Paul Emmons' research and contributions in the field of architecture are distinguished by a focus on the history and theory of architectur al practices, with a notable emphasis on drawing and representation issues. This extensive body of research not only demonstrates his deep engagement with the subject but also highlights his profound impact on the field of architecture.

Books Edited

 * Finishing in Architecture: Polishing, Completing, Ending (Routledge, forthcoming). Co-edited with Marcia Feuerstein and Negar Goljan.
 * Ceilings and Dreams: The Architecture of Levity (Routledge, 2019): Co-edited with Federica Goffi and Jodi La Coe.
 * Confabulations: Storytelling in Architecture (Routledge, 2018 [softcover], 2017 [hardcover]): Co-edited with Marcia Feuerstein and Carolina Dayer, the book features 226 pages and 59 color plates.
 * The Cultural Role of Architecture (Routledge, 2012): Co-edited with John Hendrix and Jane Lomholt, this book is 228 pages long and explores the impact of culture on architectural design.

Book Chapters

 * "Being in Touch: The Historical Ground of Architecture’s Material Imagination" in Material Imagination,Thomas Bo Jensen and Jonathan Foote, eds. (Birkhäuser, forthcoming 2023).
 * "Architects' Hidden Building Signatures" in Architectures of Hiding, Federica Goffi, Emelie Desrochers-Turgeon and Rana Abughannam, eds. (Routledge, forthcoming 2023).
 * "Greater Horizons: Origins of Remote and Global Architectural Practices" in Remote Practices, Mathew Mindrup, ed. (Lund Humphries, 2022) pp. 29-39.
 * "Animate Instruments: Imagination and Architectural Drawing Tools" in Routledge Companion to Architectural Drawings and Models: From Translating to Archiving, Collecting and Displaying, Federica Goffi, ed. (Routledge, 2022) pp. 293-307.
 * "Research from within" in InterVIEWS: Insights and Introspection on Doctoral Research in Architecture, Federica Goffi, ed. (Routledge, 2020) pp. 40-53.
 * "Change of Plans: From Footprints to Horizontal Sections" in The Artful Plan, Anna Hougaard and Andreas Müller, eds. (Birkhäuser, 2020) pp. 22-37.
 * "Model Investigations," foreword to The Architectural Model: Histories of the Miniature and the Prototype, the Exemplar and the Muse, Matthew Mindrup (MIT Press, 2019).
 * "From Below Upwards: An Introduction to Ceilings and Dreams" in Ceilings and Dreams: The Architecture of Levity (Routledge, 2019) pp. 1-13.
 * "Never a Day Without a Line: Traveling Sketchbooks and the Education of Architects" in Dayton Eugene Egger: Paradox of Place, In the Line of Sight, Gregory Luhan, ed. (Oro Editions, 2019) pp. 152-155.
 * "homo fabula" with Luc Phinney in Confabulations: Storytelling in Architecture, (Routledge, 2017) pp. 1-10.
 * "Ethereal Matter" with Jodi La Coe in Cloud: an Interactive Installation of Light and Sound, Aki Ishida (Virginia Tech, 2016) pp. 6-12.
 * "Reading what is written between the lines: The esoteric dimension of Ebenezer Howard’s Garden Cities of To-Morrow" in Architecture’s Appeal, Marc Neveu and Negin Djavaherian, eds.(Routledge, 2014) pp. 33-46.
 * “Architectural Encounters between Material and Idea” in The Material Imagination: Reveries on Architecture and Matter, Matthew Mindrup, ed. (Ashgate, 2014) pp. 89-106.
 * "Orthography and the Architect’s Eye" in A Carefully Folded Ham Sandwich, Towards a Critical Phenomenology, Roger Connah, ed. (Montreal: FAD, 2013) pp. 50-71.
 * "A Window to the Soul: Depth in Early Modern Section Drawing" in Architecture Post Mortem: The Diastolic Architecture of Decline, Dystopia and Death, Donald Kunze, ed. (Ashgate, 2013) pp. 153-178.
 * "Architectural Handbooks and the User Experience" with Andreea Mihalache in Use Matters: An Alternative History of Architecture, Kenny Cupers, ed. (Routledge, 2013) pp. 35-50.
 * “Performance in the Craft of Architectural Drawing” with Carolina Dayer in Architecture as Performing Art, Marcia Feuerstein and Gray Read, eds. (Ashgate, 2013) pp. 45-60.
 * “Teaching Drawing and Representation” in Two Centuries of Architecture Education in North America, Joan Ockman with Rebecca Williamson, eds. (MIT Press, 2012) pp. 299-305.
 * “Making Plans: Ichnographia as Cultural Artifact” with Jonathan Foote in Reading Architecture and Culture: Researching Buildings, Spaces and Documents, Adam Sharr, ed. (Routledge, 2012) pp. 197-210.
 * “The Play of Plans: Le Corbusier’s Serious Game of Dominos” in The Cultural Role of Architecture, Paul Emmons, John Hendrix and Jane Lomholt, eds. (Routledge, 2012) pp. 132-140.
 * “Drawing Sites :: Site Drawings” in Architecture and Field/Work, Victoria Clare Bernie, Suzanne Ewing, Jeremie McGowan and Chris Speed, eds. (Routledge, 2011) pp. 119-128.
 * “On turning the corner to the fourth dimension: Claude Bragdon’s Isometrical Perspective” in Claude Bragdon and the Beautiful Necessity, Eugenia Ellis and Andrea Reithmayr, eds. (Cary Graphic Arts Press, 2010) pp.57-63.
 * “The Architect’s Building Signature as a Sign of Quality” in Quality out of Control: Standards for Measuring Architecture, Adam Sharr and Katrina Lewis, eds. (Routledge, 2010) pp. 175-187.
 * “Drawn to Scale: the imaginative inhabitation of architectural drawings” in From Models to Drawings, Imagination and Representation in Architecture, Marco Frascari, Jonathan Hale and Bradley Starkey, eds. (Routledge, 2007) pp. 64-78.
 * “The Lead Pencil: Lever of the Architect’s Imagination” in Tools of the Imagination, Drawing Tools and Technologies from the Eighteenth Century to the Present, Susan Piedmont-Palladino, ed. (Princeton Architectural Press, 2007) pp. 31-40.
 * “Making Visible the Invisible: Signs of Air in Architectural Treatises” with Marco Frascari in Aeolian Winds and the Spirit in Renaissance Architecture, Barbara Kenda, ed. (Routledge, 2006) pp. 87-102.
 * “Upright or Flexible? Ideologies of Posture in Modern Architecture” with William Braham in Body and Building: Essays on the Changing Relation of Body and Architecture, George Dodds and Robert Tavernor, eds. (MIT Press, 2002, 2005) pp. 290-303.

Journal Articles

 * "Material Nature or Perversion: The case of Aluminum," with Berrin Terim, ARQ (Architecture Research Quarterly) 27.1 (2023). Digitally published July 25, 2023.
 * "First Build then Draw (and repeat)! Circularity and Measured Drawings," with Mehraneh Davari, Charrette 9.1. (2023), pp. 11-32. Digitally published July 18, 2023.
 * "Follow the Footprints," Drawing Matter (December 10, 2020).
 * "Embodying Networks: Bubble Diagrams and the Image of Modern Organicism," Journal of Architecture, 22.5 (2017), pp. 854-874. Reprinted as one of the Journal’s leading articles from the last twenty years.
 * "Bodies, Books and Buildings: Encountering the Renaissance Frontispiece," Chora, Intervals in the Philosophy of Architecture, edited by Alberto Pérez-Gómez and Stephen Parcell, eds., 7 (2015), pp. 69-94.
 * "Architect-Computer Symbiosis," with Dalal Kassem, Montreal Architecture Review, 1 (2014), pp. 47-65.
 * "Demiurgic lines: line-making and the architectural imagination," Journal of Architecture, 19.4 (August 2014), pp. 536-559.
 * "The place of odour in modern aerial urbanism," Journal of Architecture, 19.2 (April 2014), pp. 202-215.
 * "Material Models and Immaterial Paradigms in the Rietveld Schröder House," with Matthew Mindrup, Journal of Architectural Education, 62.2 (November 2008), pp. 44-53.
 * "Architecture before Art: Imagining Architectural Authority in Early Modern England," ARQ (Architecture Research Quarterly), 10.3/4 (2006), pp. 275-284.
 * "Embodying Networks: Bubble Diagrams and the Image of Modern Organicism," The Journal of Architecture, 11.4 (September 2006), pp. 441-461.
 * "Marco Frascari, 1945-2013," Journal of Architectural Education, 67.2 (October 2013), pp. 172-173.
 * "Size Matters: Virtual Scale and Bodily Imagination in Architectural Drawing," ARQ (Architecture Research Quarterly), 9.3-4 (2005), pp. 227-236.
 * "Diagrammatic Practices: The Office of Frederick L. Ackerman and Architectural Graphic Standards," Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, 62.1 (March 2005), pp. 4-21.
 * "Intimate Circulations: Representing Flow in House and City," AA Files, the Journal of the Architectural Association School of Architecture, London, Vol. 51 (2005), pp. 48-57.
 * "What is Equitable in Athletic Facilities?" with Diane Wendt, Planning for Higher Education, Vol. 24, No. 3 (Spring 1996), pp. 27-31.
 * "Picturesque Modernism," Architecture Contemporaine, Vol. 12 (Paris: Bibliotheque des Arts, English with French translation, 1990/91), pp. 6–10.
 * "Whole Amidst Part: Perceiving the Architecture of Frank Gehry," Midgard Journal of Architectural Theory and Criticism, Vol. 1 (1991), pp. 91-103.

Conference Proceedings

 * “Immured: The Uncanny Solidity of Section” in Where Do You Stand, Conference Proceedings of the 99th ACSA Annual Meeting (2011).
 * “Prudent and Audacious Stewards: Parables of Architects Signing Buildings” in Assuming Responsibility: The Architecture of Stewardship ACSA Southeast Conference Proceedings, Luis Boza and Michelle Rinehart, eds. (ACSA, 2007) pp. 47-52.
 * “The Pencil Lead as Building Material” in Architecture in Communication: Challenge and Opportunity in Building the Information Age, Conference Proceedings of the ACSA 90th Annual Meeting (ACSA, 2002).
 * “The Means and Meanings of Dashed Lines” in Paradoxes of Progress: Architecture and Education in a Post-Utopian Era, Conference Proceedings of the ACSA 89th Annual Meeting (ACSA, 2001) pp. 458-463.
 * “Walk This Way: The Aesthetics of the Modern Flow Diagram” in Heterotopolis: Immigration, Ethnicity, and the American City, Conference Proceedings of the ACSA 88th Annual Meeting (ACSA, 2000) pp. 446–450.
 * “John Webb’s Historical Essay on the Origins of the Chinese Language” in Double Frames: Proceedings of the First International Symposium of The Centre for Asian Environments, Maryam Gusheh, ed. (Sydney, AU: University of New South Wales, 2000) pp. 207–223.
 * “The ‘Right’ Angles: Constructing Upright Posture and the Orthographic View” in Legacy and Aspirations:  Considering the future of Architectural Education, Conference Proceedings of the ACSA 87th Annual Meeting (ACSA, 1999) pp. 331-336.
 * “Upright or Flexible? Ideologies of Posture in Modern Architecture” with William Braham (1st author) in Conference Proceedings of the South East ACSA Regional Meeting (ACSA, 1998).
 * “The Cosmogony of Bubble Diagrams” Constructing Identity, Conference Proceedings of the ACSA 86th Annual Meeting (ACSA, 1998) pp. 420–425.
 * “A Role for the Architect in Environment-Behavior Research,” withJulia Robinson (1st author) and Myles Graff, The Challenge of Diversity: Environmental Design Research Association Proceedings, Donna Duerk and David Campbell, eds., Vol. 15 (EDRA, 1984) pp. 30-37.

Book Reviews

 * “Review of Matthew Wells, Architectural Iconographies – Survey (Drawing Matter and Park, 2021)” Architectural Histories, the Journal of the European Architectural History Network (2023).
 * “Review of Basile Baudez, Inessential Colors (Princeton University Press, 2022)” with Negar Goljan, Montreal Architectural Review (mcgill.ca). 8.2 (2022).
 * “Review: Jordan Kauffman, Drawing on Architecture: The Object of Lines, 1970-1990 (MIT Press, 2018),” Architectural Histories, the Journal of the European Architectural History Network (2019).
 * “Reviews: Christy Anderson, Inigo Jones and the Classical Tradition (Cambridge University Press, 2007) and Giles Worsley, Inigo Jones and the European Classicist Tradition (Yale University Press, 2007)” The Journal of Architecture (London: Routledge for the Royal Institute of British Architects) 13.3 (2008) pp. 335-338. “Review Essay: John Evelyn’s ‘Elysium Britannicum’ and European Gardening, edited by Therese O’Malley and Joachim Wolschke-Bulmahn” Studies in the History of Gardens and Designed Landscapes, 20 (2000) pp. 84-89.