Kevin Harrington

Kevin Harrington is professor emeritus of architectural history at the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) in Chicago, where he began teaching in 1978. Born in Rochester, New York, he majored in history at Colgate University and studied the history of architecture and urban development at Cornell University, where he received his master’s degree and PhD. His thesis explored the treatment of architecture in the Encyclopédie. His research and publications have focused on Chicago’s architectural and urban development in relation to modern architecture and the modern city, especially considering the ways Chicago is typical or unique. He has taught IIT architecture and humanities programs in Italy and France. Harrington has been a visiting professor at the University of Texas at Austin, where he held the Ruth Carter Stevenson Chair; the Escola da Cidade, Sao Paulo, Brazil; and Brandenburg Technical University, Cottbus, Germany. He is coauthor, with Franz Schulze, of Chicago’s Famous Buildings (University of Chicago Press, 2003); and coauthor with Edward Windhorst, of Lake Point Tower: A Design History (Chicago Architecture Foundation, 2009). He edited Mies van der Rohe: Architect as Educator (Illinois Institute of Technology, 1986), to which he also contributed the essay “Order, space, proportion: Mies's curriculum at IIT.” He also wrote “Ideas in action: Hilberseimer and the redevelopment of the South Side of Chicago,” for In the shadow of Mies: Ludwig Hilberseimer, architect, educator and urban planner (Rizzoli, 1988). He is coeditor and contributor with Michelangelo Sabatino of Building, Breaking, Rebuilding (University of Minnesota Press, 2025) on IIT and neighboring Bronzeville.