Alan Balfour headshot

Alan Balfour

Professor Emeritus

Contact

Telephone

Alan Balfour

Professor Emeritus

Education

DA, Edinburgh College of Art, 1961
MFA, Princeton University, 1964

Keywords

Cultural History

Biography

Educated at Edinburgh and Princeton, Alan Balfour is Emeritus Professor and former Dean of the College of Architecture (now called the College of Design) at Georgia Tech. He was formerly architecture dean at Rensselaer, chairman of the Architectural Association in London and architecture dean at Rice University. Since 2014 he has held the position of advisory professor to the CAUP Faculty of Tongji University, Shanghai. 

Alan Balfour writes on architecture and the cultural imagination. His books include ROCKEFELLER CENTER, Architecture as Theater, (McGraw-Hill, 1978); BERLIN: The Politics of Order: 1737-1989 (Rizzoli 1990)); and three books in Wiley/Academy’s World Cities series, BERLIN, 1995; (This and the earlier book on the city, received AIA International Book Awards); SHANGHAI, 2000; and NEW YORK in 2001.  In 2005 he published CTREATING A SCOTTISH PARLUAMENT (Finlay Brown) on an architecture anticipating independence. In the last decade he has published two books on the Middle East, SOLOMON’S TEMPLE, Myth, Conflict and Faith, (Wiley-Blackwell, 2013) and THE WALLS OF JERUSALEM, Preserving the Past Controlling the Future, (Wiley-Blackwell. 2019).  2023 will the see the publication from Anthem Press of CLASSICAL EDONBURGH, A City Divided, previously published privately as PRIDE AND POVERTY. 

Balfour was the year 2000 recipient of the Topaz Medal, the highest recognition given in North America to an educator in architecture. DesignIntelligence has named him among their choice of exemplary design educators.