Richard Guy Wilson

Education

University of Michigan, PhD
University of Michigan, M.A.
University of Colorado, B.A.

Biography

Professor Emeritus Richard Guy Wilson’s specialty is scholarship involving the architecture, design and art of the 18th to the 21st centuries in America and abroad. His research, publications and also exhibitions that have ranged from the architecture of Thomas Jefferson to the Arts & Crafts and related (Art Nouveau, etc.) movements in the United States and Europe, the history of cities and especially the American suburb and utopian plans, the foundations of Modernism, the revival of classicism in the later 19th century, and mid-20th century modern houses and furniture design. Very important has been his research on the connections in architecture with literature and poetry.

Wilson engaged students through lectures, class discussions, and also actually seeing the building and field trips. He taught a wide variety of courses that range from the global history of cities, surveys of architectural history, historic preservation and then more specialized courses on Thomas Jefferson’s architecture, the American architecture of the 19th century, the 20th century, and seminars that treat the American Renaissance and the Beaux-Arts, the  Arts & Crafts Movement, mid-20th century modernism, and others, He also ran summer schools that are located in Newport, RI, Chicago, and other locations such as London and Paris. He is a frequent lecturer (more than 600) at other universities, museums and historical societies.