Mario Gooden

Mario Gooden (MArch ‘90) is Professor of Professional Practice, Director of the MArch Program, Sequence Co-Director for Advanced Architecture Studios, and Co-Director of the Global Africa Lab at Columbia GSAPP, an innovative research initiative that explores the spatial topologies of the African continent and its diaspora. Gooden is also the Director of Mario Gooden Studio: Architecture + Design, a transdisciplinary practice dedicated to the design and exploration of architecture and its relationships to culture and knowledge. His practice merges architectural design with landscape, urbanism, history, cultural production, and performance. Gooden graduated magna cum laude from Clemson University in 1987 with a B.S. in Design and received a Master of Architecture degree from Columbia University in 1990 and is a recipient of the McKim Prize.

Gooden’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally including the International Exhibition of Architecture Biennale in Venice, Italy; Architekturmuseum der TU Mūnchen; Het Nieuwe Instituut in Rotterdam (formerly the Netherlands Architecture Institute); Storefront for Art and Architecture; the National Building Museum in Washington, DC; and the Municipal Arts Society in New York. His work has also been featured in journals and publications including, ARTFORUM International, Architect Magazine, Architectural Record, Metropolis, Wallpaper, Architecture & Urbanism (A+U) *, *PIN-UP Magazine, and The New York Times. Gooden’s multi-media installation work entitled The Refusal of Space was featured in the Reconstructions: Architecture and Blackness in America exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in 2021.

Gooden is a 2012 National Endowment for the Arts Fellow, a MacDowell Fellow, a 2019 recipient of a National Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Architecture, the 2024 William A. Bernoudy Architect in Residence American Academy in Rome, and a 2025 Artist in Residence at Atelier 11, Cité Cité Falguière, Paris, France. Gooden is the recipient of a 2025 Graham Foundation production grant for his performance work Black Holes Ain’t So Black along with choreographer Jonathan Gonzàlez and film-maker Thuto Somo. Gooden is the author of Dark Space: Architecture Representation Black Identity (Columbia University Press, 2016) as well as numerous essays and articles on architecture, art, and cultural production. Gooden is also a Senior Research Associate at the Visual Identities in Art and Design (VIAD) at the University of Johannesburg (South Africa) and a founding member of the Black Reconstruction Collective. Gooden served as the 63rd President of the Architectural League of New York from 2022-2025.