Christina E. CrawfordMasse-Martin NEH Professor of Art History, Associate Professor
Education
- Ph.D., Harvard University, 2016
- M. Arch., Harvard Graduate School of Design, 2003
- B.A., Yale University, 1995
Biography
Christina E. Crawford is Masse-Martin NEH Professor of Art History (2022-2025), Associate Professor Modern and Contemporary Architecture in the Art History Department at Emory University, Associated Faculty of the Emory History Department, Faculty of Emory's Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies Program, and 2021 recipient of the Emory Williams Distinguished Undergraduate Teaching Award. In 2023 she was visiting faculty at the Kharkiv School of Architecture (Ukraine).
Her first book, Spatial Revolution: Architecture and Planning in the Early Soviet Union (Cornell University Press, 2022), winner of the Southeast Chapter of the Society of Architectural Historians (SESAH) Book Award and Honorable Mention for the University of Southern California Book Prize in Literary and Cultural Studies, establishes the foundations of early Soviet urban theory and practice in three seminal industrial sites: Baku, Magnitogorsk, and Kharkiv, and is the recipient of funding from the Millard Meiss Publication Fund of the College Art Association, and a Digital Publishing in the Humanities/TOME subsidy from Emory University. She is also co-editor of Detroit-Moscow-Detroit: An Architecture for Industrialization, 1917-1945 (MIT Press, 2023) with Jean-Louis Cohen and Claire Zimmerman.
Her new research, Atlanta Housing Interplay, funded by the Getty Foundation, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, investigates international transfer of ideas about social housing using the first federally-funded housing projects in the US—Atlanta's University and Techwood Homes (1933-37)—as principal nodes.
She is the faculty advisor for the Architectural Studies Minor and the QSS Architectural Studies track. She advises topics on modern and contemporary architecture and urbanism.
Research Interests
- Modern and contemporary architecture and urbanism—history, theory, and design
- Modern housing
- Transnational exchange of ideas about housing and urban form in the twentieth century Socialist space, with an emphasis on the Soviet sphere
- The entanglement of economy, politics, and societal expectations in built form
Selected Publications
Books
Articles
Christina E. Crawford and Alessandro Porotto, "From Hof to Homes: Interwar housing exchange between Vienna and Atlanta," Journal of Architecture (forthcoming 2024, accepted for publication)
“Black Community Building: New Deal Programmatic Advocacy at Atlanta’s University Homes,” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 81, no. 2 (June 2022): 213-234
“From Tractors to Territory: Socialist Urbanization through Standardization,” Journal of Urban History 44, no. 1 (2017): 54-77.
Winner of the 2017 Emerging Scholar Prize from Society of Historians of Eastern European, Eurasian and Russian Art and Architecture.
“The Innovative Potential of Scarcity in SA’s Comradely Competition for Communal Housing, 1927." ArchiDOCT 1, no. 2 (2014): 33-53
“Kul'tura Torgovogo Tsentra (Mall Culture),” ACC (Art, City, Construction) / Ukraine 41, no. 10 (2003): 44-45
Book Chapters
“Closing the Loop: Soviet Memoirs of American Technical Consultants, 1928-34,” in Detroit-Moscow-Detroit: An Architecture for Industrialization, 1917-1945, eds. Jean-Louis Cohen, Christina E. Crawford, Claire Zimmerman (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2023), 225-251
Christina E. Crawford, Jean-Louis Cohen, and Claire Zimmerman, "Preface" and "Introduction," Detroit-Moscow-Detroit: An Architecture for Industrialization, 1917-1945, eds. Jean-Louis Cohen, Christina E. Crawford, Claire Zimmerman (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2023), 9-12, 15-30
“The Case for Saving Socialist Space,” in Research Companion to Landscape Architecture, eds. Ellen Braae and Henriette Steiner (London: Routledge, 2019), 260-274
Tim Love and Christina Crawford, "Plot Logic: Character-Building through Creative Parcelisation," in Urban Design and the Real Estate Development Process, eds. Steve Tiesdell and David Adams (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011), 92-113. Complete co-authorship.
Reviews & Interviews
"Postperipheral: Enacting a Horizontal History of Architecture and Empire," Architectural Histories 11, no. 1 (December 18, 2023)
Review of Monotown: Urban Dreams, Brutal Imperatives by Clayton Strange, Journal of Urban Design 26, no. 1 (January 2021): 133-135
Review of Brokers of Modernity: East Central Europe and the Rise of Modernist Architects, 1910-1950 by Martin Kohlrausch. Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians (September 2020, vol. 79, no. 3): 344-346
Review of Industries of Architecture by Katie Lloyd Thomas, Tilo Amhoff, Nick Beech. Journal of Architectural Education (Nov.16, 2017)
Public History & Journalistic Articles, Interviews, Reviews
"Remembering Jean-Louis Cohen," editorial organization and remembrance in the Avery Review (October 30, 2023)
“Seeing Ukraine Then and Now,” Harvard Design Magazine 50: Today’s Global (2022): 164-169
5-image photo essay that accompanies text by Jerold S. Kayden.
“Love Letter to Ukraine in the Language of Architecture,” Platform (July 4, 2022), platformspace.net
24-image photo essay and 600-word text essay.
“Atlanta Citizenship and Housing, Success and Setback,” Platform, June 14, 2021, platformspace.net
1,500-word essay.
“In an Extraordinary Space,” Architecture Boston 20: 2 (2017): 20-23
Christina E. Crawford with Darra Goldstein (interview), “Under the Bed is a Cool, Dark Place,” Harvard Design Magazine 43: Shelf Life (2106)
“From the Old Family—to the New,” Harvard Design Magazine 41: Family Planning (2015): 38-45
“Soviet Planning Praxis: From Tractors to Territory,” Centerpiece (Weatherhead Center for International Affairs) 29, no. 2 (Spring 2015): 14-20
“Genplan 101: How to Read a Socialist General Plan Drawing,” Second World Urbanity, February 6, 2015, secondworldurbanity.org. 1,500-word essay.
“Bauhaus 1919-1933: Workshops for Modernity, MOMA New York” (exhibition review), Architecture Boston 13, no. 2 (2010)
“Mini Monuments or Little Monsters,” Heroic exhibit, Pinkcomma Gallery, Boston, MA.
1,000-word essay.
“Urban Space or State Monument? The Maydan in Kiev,” Archis 2 (2003): 46-49.
“A Declaration of Independence,” Metropolis, December (2002): 54.
Books / Projects in Preparation
Atlanta Housing Interplay: Expanding the Interwar Housing Map. Book manuscript and public history project
Georgia Historical Society Markers for Techwood Homes and University Homes (2020-2022)
Media on marker dedications, October 11, 2022: Emory Report full-length article, December 6, 2022; AllonGeorgia news report, October 18, 2022; Atlanta News First (CBS affiliate) TV spot, October 15, 2022; Saporta Report news roundup, October 13, 2022; Emory News Center report, October 6, 2022; Saporta Report article, December 30, 2021
"Atlanta's New Deal Housing," Georgia Seminar at the Fox Center for Humanistic Inquiry, April-May 2023. Public education series sponsored by Georgia Humanities
Selected Seminars
Decolonizing Histories of the Soviet Built Environment; Atlanta Architecture in the Twentieth Century; Spatial Revolution! Early Soviet Architecture and Planning; Soviet Cities; Mining the Archive; Atlanta's New Deal Public Housing; The Architect and the City; Four Walls and a Roof: Contemporary Architectural Theory & Practice
