2015

Thomas Leslie, FAIA

Pickard Chilton Professor and Director of Graduate Education, Department of Architecture, Iowa State University

Thomas Leslie, FAIA, is the Pickard Chilton Professor in Architecture and the Director of Graduate Education for the Department of Architecture at Iowa State University. He teaches building design, history, and technology. Leslie holds degrees from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Columbia University. Prior to teaching, he spent seven years with Norman Foster and Partners, London

Leslie is the author of Louis I. Kahn: Building Art, Building Science (Braziller, 2005) and Chicago Skyscrapers, 1871-1934 (University of Illinois, 2013). He is co-author of Design-Tech: Building Science for Architects (2nd edition, Routledge, 2014).

Leslie’s research into the historical relationship between engineering, design and construction has been funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Graham Foundation, and the American Philosophical Society. His research has appeared in publications including the Journal of Architectural Education, the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Construction History, Design Issues and Technology and Culture.

He has held visiting faculty positions at the McCormick School of Engineering at Northwestern University, the University of Technology-Sydney, Australia, and the Bauhaus-Universitätin Weimar, Germany. His teaching has been recognized with awards from the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture, the U.S. Green Building Council and the American Institute of Architects.

In 2013-2014, Leslie was the Booth Family Fellow in Historic Preservation at the American Academy in Rome, where he researched the work of Italian engineer and builder Pier Luigi Nervi.