Is an architect, scholar, editor, and Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Illinois Institute of Technology. After several years in architectural practice, he took his doctoral studies at the University of Pennsylvania in 1983 under the supervision of Stanford Anderson.  His dissertation topic—“The Idea of Style: Gottfried Semper in London”—presaged his early focus on German theory. 
This phase of his work culminated with his translation of Semper’s Style in the Technical and Tectonic Arts and with the intellectual biography Gottfried Semper: Architect of the Nineteenth Century, which won the Alice Davis Hitchcock Award from the American Society of Architectural Historians.  He has written numerous books and articles on the history and theory of architecture, among them Modern Architectural Theory: A Historical Survey, 1673-1968, and An Introduction to Architectural Theory: 1968 to the Present. 

In recent years his interests have turned to the contemporary sciences and humanities and their relation to architectural thought.

His two most recent books focus on this theme: The Architect's Brain: Neuroscience, Creativity, and Architecture, and Architecture and Embodiment: The Implications of the New Sciences and Humanities for Design.