David Leatherbarrow is Professor of Architecture and Chair of the Graduate Group in Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania School of Design

University of Pennsylvania School of Design

The University of Pennsylvania School of Design is the design school of the University of Pennsylvania. It is currently ranked 3rd in urban planning by The Best Colleges, 10th in urban planning by Planetizen, and 8th in architecture by DesignIntelligence...

, Philadelphia, where he has taught since 1984. He received his B.Arch. from the University of Kentucky

University of Kentucky

The University of Kentucky, also known as UK, is a public co-educational university and is one of the state's two land-grant universities, located in Lexington, Kentucky...

 and holds a Ph.D. in Art from the University of Essex

University of Essex

The University of Essex is a British campus university whose original and largest campus is near the town of Colchester, England. Established in 1963 and receiving its Royal Charter in 1965...

. He has also taught in England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

, at Cambridge University and the University of Westminster

University of Westminster

The University of Westminster is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom. Its origins go back to the foundation of the Royal Polytechnic Institution in 1838, and it was awarded university status in 1992.The university's headquarters and original campus are based on Regent...

 (formerly the Polytechnic of Central London).

He is primarily known for his contributions to the field of architectural phenomenology

Phenomenology (architecture)

Phenomenology is both a philosophical design current in contemporary architecture and a specific field of academic research, based on the experience of building materials and their sensory properties....

. Questions of how architecture appears, how architecture is perceived, and how topography shapes architecture often direct his research.

He is influenced by architectural theorists Dalibor Vesely

Dalibor Vesely

Dalibor Vesely was born in Prague, Czech Republic in 1934. He studied engineering, architecture, art history and philosophy in Prague and in Munich and obtained his PhD from Charles University in Prague. He studied with Hans-Georg Gadamer, with whom he kept a correspondence that would last until...

 and Joseph Rykwert

Joseph Rykwert

Joseph Rykwert is Paul Philippe Cret Professor of Architecture Emeritus at the University of Pennsylvania, and is widely regarded as the most important architectural historian and critic of his generation. He has spent most of his working life in the United Kingdom and America...

, who both taught at Essex in the 1970s and also influenced Alberto Pérez-Gómez

Alberto Pérez-Gómez

Alberto Pérez-Gómez is an architectural historian and is also known as a theorist and a promoter of phenomenology. Born December 24, 1949 in Mexico City, Mexico, he graduated as an engineer and architect from the National Polytechnic Institute of Mexico and pursued graduate studies in the history...

 and numerous other scholars in the field of architectural phenomenology and history.

Select list of Leatherbarrow's writings

• The Roots of Architectural Invention: Site, Enclosure, Materials, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1993.
• On Weathering: The Life of Buildings in Time, with Mohsen Mostafavi
  Mohsen Mostafavi
  Mohsen Mostafavi is an Iranian-American architect and educator. He currently the Dean and Alexander and Victoria Wiley Professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. He was formerly the Gale and Ira Drukier Dean of the College of Architecture, Art and Planning at Cornell University...
  
  , Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press 1993.
• Uncommon Ground: Architecture, Technology, and Topography, Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press 2000.
• Topographical Stories: Studies in Landscape and Architecture, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press 2004.
• Surface Architecture, with Mohsen Mostafavi
  Mohsen Mostafavi
  Mohsen Mostafavi is an Iranian-American architect and educator. He currently the Dean and Alexander and Victoria Wiley Professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. He was formerly the Gale and Ira Drukier Dean of the College of Architecture, Art and Planning at Cornell University...
  
  , Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press 2005.
• Architecture Oriented Otherwise, New Haven: Princeton Architectural Press 2008.

External links

• University of Pennsylvania faculty page (bibliography)