Education:
BS University of Chicago 1980
PhD Harvard University, 1988
Professor Samson teaches art history, and his scholarship is in the history of architecture, especially the modern period. He studies and explains the moments of transition when styles change, and the spread of avant-garde creations into general currency. He is also interested in the history of industrial design, and enjoys introducing his students to it, revealing the complex background of forms and ideas behind common household objects. His architectural history courses explore both the left- and right-brain aspects of built form. Expression and function are intimately intertwined in all the visual arts, and Professor Samson demonstrates in his courses that expression is as important as function--in some cases, more so.
Email
samson@wpi.edu
Office Location
Salisbury Labs 014
Contact
Phone:
+1 (508) 8315000 x5370
Research Interests
Research Interests:
History of Modern Architecture
Architectural Theory
Scholarly Work
"'Unser New Yorker Mitarbeiter:' Lewis Mumford, Walter Curt Behrendt, and the Modern Movement in Germany." Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, 55, no. 2 (June 1996): 126-139.
"Bauhaus." In Germany and the Americas: Culture, Politics and History, ed. Thomas Adam (ABC/Clio, 2005).
Review of Mitchell Schwarzer, Zoomscape: Architecture in Motion and Media. Technology and Culture, 46 (October 2005): 862-864.
Review of Stefan Leonhard Brandt, Männerblicke: Zur Konstruktion von “Männlichkeit in der Literatur und Kultur der amerikanische Jahrhundertwende. [Male Glances: Toward the Construction of Masculinity in Turn-of-the-Century American Literature and Culture.] Journal of American History, 86, no. 2 (Se
Dadamerika. (Review of Fogg Museum of Art exhibition Envisioning America: Prints, Drawing and Photographs by George Grosz and His Contemporaries, 1915-1933.) German Politics and Society, 20 (Summer 1990): 125-128.