CV

Eeva-Liisa Pelkonen

Eeva-Liisa Pelkonen

Assistant Dean and Professor

I have taught both architectural design and history-theory subjects at the Yale School of Architecture for the past thirty years. While such double-duty has become somewhat rare in the increasingly specialized academic environment, I am convinced that the range helps me facilitate the interplay between verbal and visual knowledge, between thinking and doing that I believe lies at the heart of architectural education. Overcoming the fault line between the worlds of architectural history and architectural design is my main pedagogical goal.

My scholarly interests cover 20th Century European and American art and architecture, art and aesthetic theory, and history of ideas. I have authored several prize-winning books in the area: Achtung Architektur! Image and Phantasm in Contemporary Austrian Architecture (MIT Press/Graham Foundation, 1996), Alvar Aalto: Architecture, Modernity and Geopolitics (Yale University Press, 2009), which won the Alice Davis Hitchcock Prize given annually by SAH for the best piece of scholarship in the field by North American writer; and Kevin Roche: Architecture as Environment (Yale University Press, 2011). I am also co-editor with Donald Albrecht of Eero Saarinen: Shaping the Future (Yale University Press, 2006), which won the Philip Johnson Award, given also by SAH annually for the best exhibition catalogue and the Bannister Fletcher Award, given by the London Authors Club annually for the best book in art or architecture. My most recent books include Exhibit A: Exhibitions that Transformed Architecture, 1948-2000 (Phaidon Press, 2018) and Untimely Moderns: How Modern Architecture Discovered Future in the Past (Yale University Press, 2023), which posits disregard for chronological time as a hallmark of modern architecture. I am currently completing a book manuscript Le Carré Bleu: Legendary Little Magazine of Modern Art, Architecture, and Urbanism for Getty.

In addition, I have published scholarly essays, book chapters, and articles in various anthologies and journals including AA Files, Daidalos, Finnish Architectural Review, Getty Research Magazine, Log, Perspecta, PIN-UP, and SOM Journal, as well as exhibition catalogs. My curatorial experience includes working in various capacities in exhibitions Eero Saarinen: Shaping the Future, Kevin Roche: Architecture as Environment, Alvar Aalto: Second Nature, and Le Carré Bleu: A legendary little magazine from Helsinki, 1958-1961. My scholarly and curatorial work has been supported by Getty, the Graham Foundation, the Finnish Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Austrian Ministry of Science and Research.

Education
MArch Tampere University of Technology
MED Yale University
PhD Columbia University

Courses

1289
Fall 2024
Space-Time-Form
Eeva-Liisa Pelkonen
1012
Spring 2024
Architectural Design 2
Annie Barrett, Andrew Benner, Laura Briggs, Joeb Moore, Eeva-Liisa Pelkonen, Lexi Tsien-Shiang
3012
Spring 2024
Architecture and Modernity I: Sites and Spaces
Eeva-Liisa Pelkonen
1289
Fall 2023
Space-Time-Form
Eeva-Liisa Pelkonen
1012
Spring 2023
Architectural Design 2
Annie Barrett, Laura Briggs, Liz Gálvez, Talitha Liu, Joeb Moore, Eeva-Liisa Pelkonen, Miriam Peterson
3012
Spring 2023
Architecture and Modernity I: Sites and Spaces
Eeva-Liisa Pelkonen
1012
Spring 2022
Architectural Design 2
Trattie Davies, Sunil Bald, Nikole Bouchard, Laura Briggs, Joeb Moore, Eeva-Liisa Pelkonen, Lexi Tsien-Shiang
3204b
Spring 2022
Materials & Meaning
Eeva-Liisa Pelkonen
1289
Fall 2021
Space-Time-Form
Eeva-Liisa Pelkonen
3012
Fall 2021
Architecture and Modernity I: Sites and Spaces
Eeva-Liisa Pelkonen
1012
Spring 2021
Architectural Design 2
Trattie Davies, Sunil Bald, Peter de Bretteville, Joeb Moore, Eeva-Liisa Pelkonen, Miriam Peterson
3312b
Spring 2021
Textile Architectures: A Transhistorical and Global Perspective into Architectural Historiography
Eeva-Liisa Pelkonen
1289
Fall 2020
Space-Time-Form
Eeva-Liisa Pelkonen
3101a
Fall 2020
Textile Architectures
Eeva-Liisa Pelkonen
1012
Spring 2020
Architectural Design 2
Miriam Peterson, Peter de Bretteville, Elisa Iturbe, Amy Lelyveld, Joeb Moore, Eeva-Liisa Pelkonen
1289
Fall 2019
Space-Time-Form
Trattie Davies, Eeva-Liisa Pelkonen
3289a
Fall 2018
Bauhaus @ 100
Eeva-Liisa Pelkonen, Trattie Davies
3092
Spring 2018
Independent M.E.D. Research
Eeva-Liisa Pelkonen
3220
Spring 2018
Contemporary Architectural Discourse Colloquium
Eeva-Liisa Pelkonen
3285b
Spring 2018
1968 @ 50: Art, Architecture, and Cultures of Protest
Eeva-Liisa Pelkonen, Craig Buckley, Kevin Repp
1011
Fall 2017
First-Year Core Studio
Joyce Hsiang, Brennan Buck, Amina Blacksher, Eeva-Liisa Pelkonen, Michael Szivos, David Eugin Moon
3091
Fall 2017
Methods and Research Workshop
Eeva-Liisa Pelkonen
3092a
Fall 2017
Independent M.E.D. Research
Eeva-Liisa Pelkonen
3092
Spring 2017
Independent M.E.D. Research
Eeva-Liisa Pelkonen
3220
Spring 2017
Contemporary Architectural Discourse Colloquium
Eeva-Liisa Pelkonen
3276b
Spring 2017
Life of Forms and The Shape of Time
Eeva-Liisa Pelkonen, Nicola Suthor
1011
Fall 2016
First-Year Core Studio
Joyce Hsiang, Brennan Buck, Trattie Davies, Eeva-Liisa Pelkonen, Michael Szivos
3091
Fall 2016
Methods and Research Workshop
Eeva-Liisa Pelkonen
3092a
Fall 2016
Independent M.E.D. Research
Eeva-Liisa Pelkonen
3092
Spring 2016
Independent M.E.D. Research
Eeva-Liisa Pelkonen
3220
Spring 2016
Contemporary Architectural Discourse Colloquium
Eeva-Liisa Pelkonen
3092
Spring 2015
Independent M.E.D. Research
Eeva-Liisa Pelkonen
3220
Spring 2015
Contemporary Architectural Discourse Colloquium
Eeva-Liisa Pelkonen