Milton S. F. Curry

Milton S. F. Curry is a Professor of Architecture and Senior Associate Dean for Strategic Initiatives and Engagement at Cornell University's College of Architecture, Art, and Planning (AAP); founding editor of CriticalProductive (a peer-reviewed academic journal focused on culture, arts, and spatial practice) distributed by MIT Press; and principal of Milton Curry ProjectStudio design consultancy.

Curry is a respected scholar and thinker on urbanism, visual culture, and the American city. He produces creative work and scholarship on the role of architecture in shaping social consciousness and the intersectional role of race, class, and urban geography embedded in modern and contemporary aesthetic practices in the Americas.

Curry is a seasoned academic leader: he was Dean and Professor at the University of Southern California School of Architecture from 2017–22; Associate Dean at the University of Michigan Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning; and Director of the Cornell University Council for the Arts. He currently serves on the Museum of Modern Art New York Board of Trustees Architecture and Design Acquisitions Committee and the Abode Communities Board of Directors and Finance Committee. 

Curry received a Master of Architecture II post-professional degree with distinction from the Harvard University Graduate School of Design in 1992 and a Bachelor of Architecture from Cornell University in 1988.

Related Links

• CriticalProductive

Related News

• Leading Educators: Q&A with Milton Curry
• Cornell AAP Appoints New Leadership and Faculty, Including Milton S. F. Curry and Others

Classes (Selected)

• Fall 2024: Critical Theory Seminar: Black Cities Americas / Reparations
• Spring 2024: Option Studio: Reparative Urbanism / Post-Capitalist Detroit
• Thesis Advisor: BArch / March / MSAAD

Awards, Grants, and Fellowships (Selected)

• 2024: Co-Principal Investigator A. W. Mellon Foundation Grant: Supporting USC Architecture Paul R. Williams Archive Initiative, Fund Total: $ 600,000 USD (3-YR Project Period).
• 2020: Principal Investigator Ford Foundation Grant: Supporting USC Architecture Paul R. Williams Archive Initiative, Fund Total: $ 100,000 USD (2-YR Project Period).
• Principal Investigator A. W. Mellon Foundation Urbanism and Humanities Grant:  Michigan-Mellon Project on Egalitarianism and the Metropolis, Fund Total: $ 1,300,000 USD (4.5-YR Project Period).

Exhibitions and Presentations (Selected)

• 2022: Architecture: The Legends Series, Christie’s Education Program
• 2022: Invited Lecture: "Citizen Architect - Paradoxes of Race in Democratic Culture," Carl M. Sapers Ethics in Practice Lecture, Harvard Graduate School of Design
• 2020: Invited Lecture: "Paul R. Williams and the Legacy of Black Aesthetics," Rochester Institute of Technology College of Art and Design / Vignelli Center for Design Studies

Publications (Selected)

• 2024; Editor in Chief: CriticalProductive Journal Issue 1: Sovereignty / Populism (Fall/Winter 2024); Critical Productive Holdings / MIT Press
• "Toward an Architecture Race Theory" Reconstructions: Architecture and Blackness in America MoMA Exhibition Catalogue, Sean Anderson and Mabel Wilson, Editors (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2020).
• "Racial Critique of Public Housing Redevelopment Strategies," p. 119-131 Suburban Sprawl: Culture, Theory and Politics, Hugh Bartling, Matthew Lindstrom, Editors (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2003).
• 2012: "Urban Space: Production of Race," p. 46-53, in Where are the Utopian Visionaries, Hansy Better, Editor (Pittsburgh: Periscope Press, 2012).
• 2011–13: Editor in Chief: CriticalProductive Journal Issue V2.1: Post-Capitalist City, Winter 2013; Issue V1.1: Theoretic Action, Autumn 2011. Publisher: CriticalProductive, Inc. / Distributor: Disticor.
• 1993–99: Founding Coeditor: Appendx Journal Issues 1-4 1993-1999 /Publisher / Distributor: Appendx, Inc.