Jean-Louis Cohen

Cohen was born in Paris and trained as an architect at the École Spéciale d'Architecture and at the Unité Pédagogique n° 6 in Paris, graduating in 1973 and then receiving his post-graduate diploma Architecte DPLG (Architecte diplômé par le gouvernement) in 1979. He received his Ph.D. in Art History from the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in 1985. After directing the Architectural Research Program at the French Ministry of Housing, from 1983 to 1996 he held a Research Professorship at the School of Architecture Paris-Villemin, and from 1996 to 2004, a Chair in Town-Planning History at the Institut Français d'Urbanisme, University of Paris. In 1994 he was named the Sheldon H. Solow Chair for the History of Architecture at New York University's Institute of Fine Arts, where he currently teaches, and he has lectured widely in North American universities.

In 1998 he was appointed to develop the Cité de l'Architecture et du Patrimoine in Paris which opened in 2007. He was director of the project until 2003. In the course of his career he has curated many major exhibitions including "The Lost Vanguard", at the Museum of Modern Art (2007); "Scenes of the World to Come", "Architecture in Uniform" and "Building a New New World: Amerikanizm in Russian Architecture" at the Canadian Centre for Architecture (1995, 2011 and 2019); "Paris-Moscou" (1979) and the centennial show "L'aventure Le Corbusier" (1987), both at the Centre Georges Pompidou; "Le Corbusier, tainy tvorchestva," at the Pushkin Museum in Moscow (2012); "Interférences – architecture, Allemagne, France" at the Musée d’art moderne et contemporain de Strasbourg, and the Deutsches Architekturmuseum, Frankfurt (2013); and "Le Corbusier: An Atlas of Modern Landscapes" at New York's Museum of Modern Art in 2013.[3] In 2013 he was also appointed Commissioner of the French Pavilion for the 14th International Architecture Exhibition (Venice Biennale, 2014).[4]

Cohen was made a Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2001. He is the recipient of the 2003 Medal for Architectural Analysis from the Académie d'Architecture and the 2010 Schelling Architecture Theory Prize in architectural theory. Two of his books won the Grand Prix du livre from the Académie d'Architecture—Scènes de la vie future: l'architecture européenne et la tentation de l'Amérique 1893-1960 (1996) and Architecture en uniforme: projeter et construire pour la seconde guerre mondiale (2012).[5][6][7] Most recently he was awarded a Graham Foundation Individual Grant in 2012 for the publication by Reaktion Books of his forthcoming history of French Architectural Modernism, and is currently a Fellow of the John S. Guggenheim Foundation for 2013.

In 2013 the Collège de France in Paris appointed him for three years to hold a chair devoted to Architecture and Urban Form.

The Canadian Centre for Architecture holds the archives of Jean-Louis Cohen.[8]

• Paris-Moscou, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, 31 May to 5 November 1979
• L'aventure Le Corbusier, 1887-1965, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, 8 October 1987 to 3 January 1988
• Scenes of the World to Come: European Architecture and the American Challenge, 1893–1960, Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal, 14 June 1995 to 14 September 1995
• The Lost Vanguard: Soviet Modernist Architecture, 1922–32 Photographs by Richard Pare, Museum of Modern Art, New York, 18 July to 29 October 2007
• Architecture in Uniform: Designing and Building for the Second World War, Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal, 13 April 2011 to 18 September 2011[9]
• Le Corbusier: Secrets of Creativity: Between Painting and Architecture, Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow, 25 September 2012 to 18 November 2012
• Interférences/Interferenzen: Architecture Allemagne-France, 1800-2000, Musée d’art moderne et contemporain de Strasbourg, 30 March to 21 July 2013 and Deutsches Architekturmuseum, Frankfurt, 3 October 2013 to 12 January 2014
• Le Corbusier: An Atlas of Modern Landscapes, Museum of Modern Art, New York, 15 June to 23 September 2013
• Building a New New World: Amerikanizm in Russian Architecture, Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal, 12 November 2019 to 26 July 2020

• Le Corbusier and the Mystique of the USSR, Theories and Projects for Moscow, 1928-1936. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992.
• Des fortifs au périf, Paris: les seuils de la ville. Paris: Picard, 1992 (with André Lortie).
• Scenes of the World to Come: European Architecture and the American Challenge, 1893-1960. Montreal: Canadian Centre for Architecture; Paris: Flammarion, 1995.
• L'architecture d'André Lurçat (1894-1970); l'autocritique d'un moderne. Liege: Pierre Mardaga, 1995.
• Les Années 30, l'architecture et les arts de l'espace entre industrie et nostalgie. Paris: Éditions du Patrimoine, 1997 (ed.).
• Encyclopédie Perret. Paris: Éditions du Patrimoine/Institut français d'architecture, 2002 (ed., with Joseph Abram and Guy Lambert).
• Casablanca, Colonial Myths and Architectural Ventures. New York: The Monacelli Press, 2002 (with Monique Eleb).
• Alger, paysage urbain et architectures 1800-2000. Paris: Éditions de l'Imprimeur, 2003 (ed., with Nabila Oulebsir and Youcef Kanoun).
• Le Corbusier, la planète comme chantier. Paris: Textuel, 2005.
• Above Paris, the Aerial Survey of Roger Henrard. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2006.
• Liquid Stone, New Architecture in Concrete. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2006 (ed., with G. Martin Moeller, Jr.).
• Mies van der Rohe. Paris: Hazan; Basel, Berlin, Boston: Birkhäuser, 2007.
• "Radical Relics: Architecture and the Politics of Modernization in Soviet Russia." In Richard Pare: The Lost Vanguard: Russian Modernist Architecture 1922-1932. New York: The Monacelli Press, 2007.
• New York. Paris: Mazenod, 2008.[10]
• Architecture in Uniform: Designing and Building for the Second World War. Montreal: Canadian Centre for Architecture; Paris: Hazan, 2011.[11]
• The Future of Architecture. Since 1889. London: Phaidon, 2012.
• Le Corbusier: an Atlas of Modern Landscapes. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2013.
• Interférences/Interferenzen: Architecture Allemagne-France, 1800-2000. Strasbourg: Musées de la Ville de Strasbourg, 2013 (ed., with Hartmut Frank).
• L'Architecture au XXe siècle en France, modernité et continuité. Paris: Hazan, 2014.
• France: Modern Architectures in History. London: Reaktion Books, 2015.
• Architecture, modernité, modernisation. Paris: Fayard, 2017.
• Building a New New World: Amerikanizm in Russian Architecture. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2020.[12]

• Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters (2015)[13]

• New York University Institute of Fine Arts Faculty Page
• "A Beaux-Arts Exercise in the Giardini". Jean-Louis Cohen on the French Pavilion at the Venice Biennale designed by Fausto Finzi in 1912.