Dianne Harris

Professor
Department of Landscape Architecture, Architecture, Art History, and History
Director, Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities

 

Research Interests

I am a historian who specializes in studies that focus on the built environment. My most recent scholarship examines postwar houses in the United States between 1945 and 1960, and the history of suburban development during that period. It also focuses on the relationships that exist between what I and others call "race and space," which means that I am interested in the role buildings, landscapes, and cities play in the construction and reinforcement of ideas about belonging and exclusion that are based on socially produced notions of race and racial identity. I also have expertise in the architecture, landscape, and urbanism of the Italian Peninsula, 1600-1800; and in the history of western cultural landscapes from 1400-present.

Education

1996 PhD, Architecture/History of Architecture, University of California, Berkeley
1989 Masters Degree, Architecture, University of California, Berkeley
1983 B.A., Landscape Architecture, University of California, Berkeley

Professional Experience

2008-present Director, Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
1996-present Professor of Landscape Architecture, Architecture, Art History, and History, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
1993 Faculty Member, International Laboratory of Architecture and Urban Design (ILAUD), Urbino, Italy
1985-1986 Landscape Designer, CHNMB Associates/Amphion Environmental, San Francisco and Oakland, CA
1983-1985 Landscape Designer, Danadjieva & Koenig Associates, Tiburon, CA

Courses Taught at the University of Illinois

History of World Landscapes (LA 314/513)
History and Theories of Modern Landscape Architecture, 1850-Present (LA 315/515)
Doctoral seminar in Methods and Approaches in Architectural and Landscape History (LA 505)
Race and Space graduate seminar (LA 587)
Knowing Cities (LA 587)
Suburban Space After 1950 (LA 590/History 502)
Various undergraduate foundation design studios including LA 233 and LA 234 (1996-2001)

Selected Publications

2011 "Case Study Utopia and Architectural Photography," American Art Journal (Smithsonian American Art Museum), v. 25, n. 2, Summer, 2011, pp. 18-21
2011 “That’s Not Architectural History” (expanded version), Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, 70, no.2, June, 2011, pp. 147-151.
2010 Second Suburb: Levittown, Pennsylvania, edited by Dianne Harris, University of Pittsburgh Press
2008 "Self and Landscape," in Landscape Theory edited by Rachel Ziady DeLue and James Elkins, Routledge Press
2007 Sites Unseen: Landscape and Vision co-edited with D. Fairchild Ruggles, University of Pittsburgh Press
2007 Special issue of Landscape Journal on "Race and Space" guest-edited by Dianne Harris. Vol. 26, n. 1, Spring, 2007
2007 "Clean and Bright and Everyone White: Seeing the Postwar Domestic Landscape in the United States," in Sites Unseen: Landscape and Vision, edited by Dianne Harris and D. Fairchild Ruggles, University of Pittsburgh Press
2006/2007 "Seeing the Invisible: Reexamining Race and Vernacular Architecture," in Perspectives in Vernacular Architecture: Anniversary Issue v. 13, n. 2
2006 "Screening Identity: Race, Class, and Privacy in the Ordinary Postwar House," in Race and Landscape in America edited by Richard Schein, Routledge Press
2005 Maybeck's Landscapes: Drawing in Nature, William Stout Publisher, Environmental Design Archives Series, U.C. Berkeley
2005 "Learning from Social History: Identity, Performance, and Architectural Histories," Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, December, 2005
2003 The Nature of Authority: Villa Culture, Landscape, and Representation in Eighteenth-Century Lombardy, Pennsylvania State University Press
2001 "The Postmodernization of Landscape: A Critical Historiography," Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, September, 1999
1999 "The Postmodernization of Landscape: A Critical Historiography," Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, September, 1999

Projects, Competitions, Exhibitions, and Media

2010-present Editor-in-Chief, SAHARA (Society of Architectural Historians Architecture Resources Archive).
2008-present Series Editor, University of Pittsburgh Press series on "Culture, Politics, and the Built Environment".
2006-present Steering Committee Member, Chair of User Functionality Committee, for SAHARA (Society of Architectural Historians Architecture Resources Archives), funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
2004 Organizer for symposium, "Constructing Race: The Built Environment, Minoritization, and Racism in the United States," funded by the Center on Democracy in a Multi-Racial Society, University of Illinois.
2002 Organizer for symposium, "Landscape and Vision," funded by the Graham Foundation and by the Brenton and Jean Wadsworth Endowment, Department of Landscape Architecture, University of Illinois.

Awards and Honors

2010-2013 Member of Board of Directors, Temple Hoyne Buell Center for American Architecture, Columbia University
2012 Frederic Lindley Morgan Chair of Architectural Design, University of Louisville
2011 Graham Foundation for Advanced Study in the Fine Arts grant award
2009 Alan G. Noble Award for best edited volume for Sites Unseen: Landscape and Vision (co-edited with D. Fairchild Ruggles) Pioneer America Society.
2006 Iris Foundation Award for Outstanding Scholarly Contributions to the History of Art, Decorative Arts, and Cultural History, from the Bard Graduate Center
2006 Elisabeth Blair MacDougall Book Award, Society of Architectural Historians (for The Nature of Authority)
2004-2005 Fellow, Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities
2001-2002 Fellow, Center for Advanced Study, University of Illinois
2000, 2002 Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts grant awards
1997 William and Flora Hewlitt International Studies Grant
1994-1995 Junior Fellow, Studies in Landscape Architecture, Dumbarton Oaks

Leadership

2010-2012 President, Society of Architectural Historians
2008-2010 First Vice-President, Society of Architectural Historians
2006-2008 Second Vice-President, Society of Architectural Historians
2007-2009 Member, Advisory Board, Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities
2003-2006 Member, Board of Directors, Society of Architectural Historians
2000-2005 Member, Advisory Board, Garden History Program, Bard Graduate Center, New York

Licenses and Affiliations

American Association of Geographers
American Historical Association
Consortium of Humanities Centers and Institutes
College Art Association
HASTAC (Humanites, Arts, Science, and Technology Advanced Collaboratory)
Society of Architectural Historians
Vernacular Architecture Forum
Society of American City and Regional Planning History
Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture