Robert McCarter
Robert McCarter is a practicing architect, professor of architecture, and author. He is the Ruth and Norman Moore Professor of Architecture at the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis. From 1991-2007, he was professor of architecture, and for ten years he was director of the School of Architecture, both at the University of Florida. From 1986-1991, he was associate professor and assistant dean at the Graduate School of Architecture, Columbia University, New York. He was visiting critic at the Berlage Institute in Rotterdam; he was appointed the Fay Jones School of Architecture Visiting Professor at the University of Arkansas; he has taught a masterclass at the IUAV University of Venice School of Architecture with Juhani Pallasmaa; he was appointed as the Frederic Lindley Morgan Distinguished Professor of Architectural Design at the University of Louisville; he has taught as visiting studio critic at North Carolina State University; and he has been appointed as a Visiting Scholar at the American Academy in Rome on three occasions. During his 36 years in academia, including 17 years in leadership roles at three institutions, McCarter has taught at least one design studio every semester, and he has taught more than 2,000 students. He coordinated the architecture lecture series at Columbia University (1986-1991), University of Florida (1991-2005), and Washington University in St. Louis (2007-2012, 2018-present). He invited Wang Shu to lecture in February 2012, the lecture taking place only two days after Wang was announced as the 2012 Pritzker Prize winner; “Someone at Washington University in St. Louis just hit the lecture jackpot,” is the way Blair Kamin of the Chicago Tribune described this event.
McCarter has practiced architecture continuously since he began his internship in 1977, and has been a licensed architect since 1982. A total of twenty-five buildings have been constructed to his designs. From 1991-2007, he was president of D-Mc2 Architecture, P. A., in Tioga, Florida, during which time his firm had twelve buildings constructed to their designs. He has his own architectural practice in St. Louis, Robert McCarter, Architect.
McCarter has an extensive bibliography and is currently undertaking research in preparation for writing monographs and essays on a number of contemporary and modern architects, including Kashef Chowdhury, Wiel Arets, Alfonso Architects, and Robert Ernest, Architect.
McCarter was selected as one of the “Ten Best Educators” in American schools of architecture in the education issue of Architect magazine, December 2009. In 2018, he was selected to be one of 71 participants in the International Curated Exhibit of Freespace: The 16th Biennale of Architecture in Venice, Italy, by the curators, Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara. Among other awards and honors, McCarter was a Juror for the Piranesi European Architecture Prize in 2009 in Piran, Slovenia; two books he authored, Louis I. Kahn and On and By Frank Lloyd Wright, were finalists for the inaugural Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) International Book Awards, 2006; he received the Rotch Foundation Traveling Studio Award in 2003 (one of only ten awarded nationally), with which he took a graduate studio to Finland; in 1989, he received a Graham Foundation Grant in support of his work on Frank Lloyd Wright; and while a post-professional graduate student, he was awarded first prize in the SOM Traveling Fellowship National Design Competition in 1983.
Select Articles, Chapters, and Publications
“From Constructed Reality to Practice with Purpose,” introduction in Practice with Purpose. Leddy Maytum Stacy Architects. Published by ORO, 2023.
“Frank Lloyd Wright’s Influence in Architecture Schools: An Overlooked Legacy in American Architectural Education,” in Renegades: The American School of Architecture, 2020. Robert McCarter. Edited by Luca Guido. Published by Oklahoma University Press.
“Grafton Architects,”, 2018. Robert McCarter. Published by Phaidon Press.
“Work of MacKay-Lyons Sweetapple Architects: Economy as Ethic,” 2017. Robert McCarter. Published by Thames & Hudson.
“The Space Within: Interior Experience as the Origin of Architecture,” 2016. Robert McCarter. Published by Reaktion Books.
“Breuer,” 2016. Robert McCarter. Published by Phaidon Press.
“Steven Holl,” 2015. Robert McCarter. Published by Phaidon Press
“Aldo van Eyck,” 2015. Robert McCarter. Published by Yale University Press.
Select Exhibitions and Presentations
“The Architecture of Carlo Scarpa: Recomposing Place, Intertwining Time, Transforming Reality,“ Robert McCarter; presented at PUCP Pontifical Catholic University of Peru, 2024, Lima, Peru.
"Louis I. Kahn: The Eternal and the Circumstantial,” Robert McCarter; presented at the Society of Architectural Historians / St. Louis Public Library Steedman Lectures, 2023, St. Louis, Mo.
“The Space Within: Interior Experience as the Origin of Architecture,” Robert McCarter; presented at the University of Ljubljana Faculty of Architecture, 2022, Slovenia.
“Herman Hertzberger: The Roots of Dutch Structuralism,” Robert McCarter; presented at the University of South Florida School of Architecture, 2021, Tampa.
“Frank Lloyd Wright: Unity Temple,” Robert McCarter; presented at Fundacao Instituto Arquitecto Jose Marques da Silva, 2020, Porto, Portugal.
Select Awards and Grants
2024 — Lifetime Achievement Award, University of Florida School of Architecture
2023 — Member, International Committee of Architectural Critics (CICA)
2023 — Founding Member, International Advisory Board, Mies Crown Hall Americas Architecture Prize
2009 — Ten Best Educators, Architect Magazine
1997 — AIA National Book Award for “Unity Temple” and “Fallingwater”