Kyle Dugdale

Kyle Dugdale is an Adjunct Assistant Professor and an architect, historian, and theorist. He holds a BA from Corpus Christi College, Oxford, an MArch from Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, and a PhD from Yale, where he was awarded the university’s Theron Rockwell Field Prize. He has practiced in London, Chicago, and New Haven, and teaches history, theory, and design at Columbia and at Yale. His work has been published in journals including Clog, Perspecta, the Journal of Architectural Education, and Utopian Studies; his first book, Babel’s Present, was published in 2016.

He maintains a special interest in architecture’s claims to metaphysical significance, with a particular curiosity for architecture as a recurring figure in biblical narratives. He works on the Tower of Babel—particularly its appropriations in the years leading up to World War II—and, more broadly, on architectural monuments as markers of identity, aspiration, and belief. He is also interested in bibliography, in inscriptions and other forms of writing on buildings, and in works of architecture as documents that are amenable to being read.

His research has been supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship of Scholars in Critical Bibliography, the John Hay Whitney Fellowship, the Harvey Fellows Program, and awards from the Society of Architectural Historians, the Bibliographical Society of America, and the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.