SAH Fellows

2020 CLASS OF FELLOWS

Alice T. Friedman

“Hard questions mean incomplete answers and lots of research and thinking by groups of people working together, but there are often awkward silences, and sometimes even a price to be paid, professionally and personally, before better answers can be found.” Alice Friedman spoke these words in her SAH plenary address 10 years ago. Although she was talking about our discipline, her words illuminated her own extraordinary contributions to it.

For four decades Alice has shown us how to ask not only hard questions, but better questions—especially about how gender and sexuality have shaped the history of architecture, and about who has been left out of it. Combining meticulous archival research, broad readings in cultural history, and painstaking formal analysis, in numerous essays, and in three field-changing books, Alice asked questions about architects, and about clients and societies. Whether in analyses of Renaissance houses, glass houses, or houses of worship, she taught us to see architectural history as a consequence of decisions made by a larger and more diverse set of protagonists than we had ever imagined, and in the process revolutionized our understanding of canonical buildings.

For 40 years Alice has taught at Wellesley College, in the Department of Art and the Women’s Studies program, and she has held two chairs. Early in her career she founded Wellesley’s Architecture Program, which she long co-directed. In prestigious visiting professorships, numerous research groups, and in fellowships at institutions including Harvard and the American Academy in Rome, Alice has shared widely her legendary generosity as a mentor and interlocutor.

As a director of the SAH, Alice served our Society well, but as a pioneer in bringing feminism to architectural history, her even greater service lies in having helped transform our discipline, and thereby helping make the Society we know today—the SAH Affiliated Groups, and the SAH that is increasingly willing to ask difficult questions about whom and how it serves.

Relatively few people have the privilege of studying with Alice. But for those of us who do, the experience is life-changing. Through the Architecture Program at Wellesley, she has made the questions of architectural history central to the training of future architects, and helped ensure that the architectural history of the future includes more women.

Please join me in congratulating Alice Friedman as she is inducted as a Fellow of the Society of Architectural Historians.

Kathryn O’Rourke
Trinity University

Mary McLeod

For nearly five decades Mary McLeod has honed her scholarship on topics in architectural history ranging from the work and politics of Le Corbusier to postmodernism to gender issues. Her ground-breaking doctoral dissertation at Princeton, “Urbanism and Utopia: Le Corbusier from Regional Syndicalism to Vichy” (1985), together with her related early essays on Le Corbusier’s Algiers project and on Taylorism and technocracy, foddered much scholarly work, not just her own, and today she ranks as one of the foremost Corbusian experts in the world. Her work on Le Corbusier led her to Charlotte Perriand, on whom she co-curated an exhibition at the Urban Center in New York and edited a major monograph, Charlotte Perriand: An Art of Living (Abrams, 2003). Many more writings on women in modern architecture have followed over the years, including on Eileen Gray, Denise Scott Brown, and women who worked in Le Corbusier’s office. She is currently the coeditor and founding co-director of Pioneering Women of American Architecture, a website containing profiles of women who have made significant contributions to American architecture. In addition to her historical scholarship, she has written widely on cultural politics and feminist theory. Her essay “Architecture and Politics in the Reagan Era: From Postmodernism to Deconstructivism,” published in Assemblage in 1989, was a seminal commentary on the culture wars of that period and has continued to be read in theory seminars ever since. Balancing depth of research with depth of thought, her writings are invariably distinguished by their clarity of expression and cogent argumentation. Other notable writings include essays on Henri Lefebvre and on Maya Lin’s project for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

Equally admirable are Mary McLeod’s contributions as an educator and member of the academic community. Since 1986 a tenured member of the faculty of Columbia’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, she has also taught over the years at Yale, Harvard, the University of Miami, the University of Kentucky, and the Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies. Her critical rigor and intellectual nurturance have made her a much sought-after and beloved mentor for more than a generation of students. Also deeply valued has been her generous service to the institutions and organizations with which she has collaborated, from the SAH and the Architectural League of New York to the Scientific Committee of Cap Moderne. An exemplary scholar and colleague, Mary McLeod’s Fellowship in SAH coincides with her 70^th birthday this spring and crowns her distinguished career. 

Joan Ockman

Leland M. Roth

My father, Leland M. Roth, was my professor—literally, I took all his classes at the UofO—he taught me to be a better librarian, invited me to be his co-author, and he launched me into the professional world of architectural history. I never dreamed I would introduce him for this fellowship at this particular gathering today.

His instruction of generations of university students has shaped our understanding of the built environment around us. Through his 50-year teaching career he touched the lives of thousands of students, inspired future architects, provided a foundation for historians, and influenced the practice of historic preservation at the state and national levels.

With his books—American Architecture, Understanding Architecture, and his foundational Concise History—he reached countless more with his unique narrative voice, offering architectural histories that are both engaging and practical, reminding us that style and context matter.

After studying under Vincent Scully at Yale University, Professor Roth taught at the Ohio State University and Northwestern University before moving to the University of Oregon, taking the post previously held by Marion Dean Ross; he was later appointed the Marion Dean Ross Distinguished Professor of architectural history. Dr. Roth offered a full range of courses from the architecture of indigenous North Americans, to modern architecture, and he inherited Ross’s esteemed course on the architectural legacy of Oregon state. A project that continues in our shared work with Oregon SAH Archipedia.

Utilizing skills he acquired while completing his bachelor’s degree in architecture, Roth drafted dozens of plans, sections, and elevations for his many publications. His written legacy—a legacy I’m committed to preserving—includes Choice outstanding titles and notable works such as McKim, Mead & White, published by Harper & Row, The Architecture of McKim, Mead & White: A Building List, and America Builds: Source Documents in American Architecture and Planning, which appeared in 1983, and which I hope will soon return to print.

At the UofO, he worked alongside faculty to create the now nationally-famous graduate Program in Historic Preservation, teaching in the annual Preservation Field School. After studying under Alan K. Laing—a founder of SAH—at the University of Illinois, Roth served as a board member of the SAH from 1978 to 1981; he is an active member of the Marion Dean Ross/Pacific Northwest Chapter of the SAH, focusing his sights on the northwest even while his reputation expanded nationally, he never lost sight of the trees through the proverbial forest.

It is thus such an honor to present this award to you, dad, not only as your daughter, but also as your former student and now co-author.  It is my great pleasure to welcome you as a Fellow of the Society of Architectural Historians.

Amanda Roth Clark
SAH MDR chapter president
Whitworth University, Spokane, WA

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FELLOWS OF THE SOCIETY OF ARCHITECTURAL HISTORIANS