Alberto Pérez-Gómez was born in Mexico City in 1949, where he studied architecture and practiced. He did postgraduate work at Cornell University, and was awarded an M.A. and a Ph.D. by the University of Essex (England). He has taught at universities in Mexico, Houston, Syracuse, Toronto, and at London’s Architectural Association. In 1983 he became Director of Carleton University’s School of Architecture in Ottawa. Since January 1987 he has occupied the Bronfman Chair of Architectural History at McGill University, where he founded the History and Theory Post-Professional (Master’s and Doctoral) Programs.

 

Pérez-Gómez has lectured extensively around the world and is the author of numerous articles published in major periodicals and books. His first book (still in print) Architecture and the Crisis of Modern Science (MIT Press, 1983) won the Alice Davis Hitchcock Award for excellence in architectural history scholarship in 1984. Later books include the erotic narrative theory Polyphilo or The Dark Forest Revisited (1992), also the point of departure of numerous projects and exhibitions (polyphilo.com). Architectural Representation and the Perspective Hinge (co-authored with Louise Pelletier, 1997), traces the history and theory of modern European architectural representation. Built upon Love: Architectural Longing after Ethics and Aesthetics (2006), examines points of convergence between ethics and poetics in architectural history and philosophy. More recently, Attunement, Architectural Meaning after the Crisis of Modern Science (MIT Press, 2016), draws connections between phenomenology and recent enactive cognitive science towards the implementation of attuned atmosphere in architecture and the urban environment. In addition, Pérez-Gómez was the executive editor of a seven-volume book series titled CHORA: Intervals in the Philosophy of Architecture (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1994-2016) which collected essays from scholars in history and theory. A selection of his own essays has been recently published under the title Timely Meditations, 2 vols., (2016)