Michelangelo Sabatino

Illinois Institute of Technology, College of Architecture, Faculty Member

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Michelangelo Sabatino is a publicly engaged architectural historian, curator, and preservationist whose research and writing focuses primarily on modern architecture and the built environment. He is Professor of Architectural History and Preservation at IIT’s College of Architecture where he directs the PhD program and is the inaugural John Vinci Distinguished Research Fellow. Since arriving in Chicago in 2014, Sabatino co-authored Modern in the Middle: Chicago Houses 1929–1975 (with Susan Benjamin, 2020), which recently won the “Modernism in America Award” from Docomomo US. He is currently editing a book that will offer fresh perspectives on the history of IIT’s campus and the Bronzeville neighborhood. The book will also serve as the basis of a new exhibition that will be located on the IIT campus.Sabatino’s first book, Pride in Modesty: Modernist Architecture and the Vernacular Tradition in Italy (2011), won multiple awards, including the Chicago-based Society of Architectural Historians’ Alice Davis Hitchcock Award. More recent books include Canada: Modern Architectures in History (with Rhodri Windsor Liscombe, 2016), Avant-Garde in the Cornfields: Architecture, Landscape, and Preservation in New Harmony (with Ben Nicholson, 2019), Making Houston Modern: The Life and Architecture of Howard Barnstone (with Barrie Scardino Bradley and Stephen Fox, 2020), and Carlo Mollino: Architect and Storyteller (with Napoleone Ferrari, 2021). http://michelangelo-sabatino.com
Address: IIT College of Architecture - PhD Program in Architecture; S.R. Crown Hall, 3360 S. State, Chicago, IL 60616

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Books by Michelangelo Sabatino

Modern Architecture and the Mediterranean: Vernacular Dialogues and Contested Identities (London: Routledge, 2010)

Pride in Modesty: Modernist Architecture and the Vernacular Tradition in Italy (Toronto and Buffalo: University of Toronto Press, 2010)

Papers by Michelangelo Sabatino

Modern architecture and the Mediterranean: vernacular dialogues and contested identities

Introduction

Journal of Architectural Education, 2012

In Pursuit of Pleasure: Schultze & Weaver and the American Hotel

Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, 2006

Pride in Modesty: Modernist Architecture and the Vernacular Tradition in Italy

Journal of Modern Italian Studies, 2012

Third Ward TX-A Documentary About Art, Life, and Real Estate - Edited by Andrew Garrison, director and Nancy Bless, Andrew Garrison, Noland Walker, producers

Journal of Architectural Education, 2008

Ghosts and Barbarians: The Vernacular in Italian Modern Architecture and Design

Journal of Design History, 2008

The primitive in modern architecture and urbanism Introduction

Journal of Architecture, 2008

Arthur Erickson and essential tectonics

Journal of Architecture, 2008

Documenting Rural Architecture, by Giuseppe Pagano

Journal of Architectural Education, 2010

Heat and light thematised in the modern architecture of Houston

Journal of Architecture, 2011

Mid-twentieth-century modern architecture in Houston thematised responsiveness to the natural phe... more Mid-twentieth-century modern architecture in Houston thematised responsiveness to the natural phenomena of heat and light despite the fact that Houston's most celebrated modern buildings were designed to be completely reliant on central air-conditioning. An examination of Houston buildings constructed from the late 1940s through the 1960s demonstrates the ways in which modern architects sought to privilege the architectural recognition of regional climatic difference while also employing modern technology to alleviate local climatic extremes of heat and humidity. The spectacular modern buildings that represent this era in Houston raise crucial questions: How did architects reconcile the doctrine of climatic responsiveness to the equally modern desire for maximum transparency? What proved more compelling: responsiveness to local circumstance or the imperatives of modern structural and mechanical engineering? Did modern architects perceive that there might be contradictions between responsiveness to climate and other aspects of modern architectural identity, such as transparency? Because concern about the roles of building design and construction in the responsible use of natural resources is current at the turn of the twenty-first century, it is pertinent to examine the ways modern architects in a particular climatic setting negotiated the issue of climatic responsiveness as modern architecture became the dominant practice.

Space of Criticism: Exhibitions and the Vernacular in Italian Modernism

Journal of Architectural Education, 2009

In Italy during the Fascist regime as well as after the Second World War, a few seminal exhibitio... more In Italy during the Fascist regime as well as after the Second World War, a few seminal exhibitions and related publications challenged the status quo and redirected debates central to architecture and politics. Two exhibitions installed at the Milan Triennale valorized the study of vernacular buildings in opposition to the dominant classicizing tendency of state-sponsored architecture. Rural Italian Architecture: Functionality of the Rural House (1936), curated by Giuseppe Pagano and Guarniero Daniel, and Spontaneous Architecture Exhibition (1951), mounted by a team of architects, including Enzo Cerutti, Giancarlo De Carlo, and Giuseppe Samonà, demonstrated critical curatorial practices that prompted divergent design responses. They represent what Bruno Zevi called “architectural criticism in architectural forms” and, conversely, what Manfredo Tafuri dismissed as “operative criticism.”