Alan Balfour (born 1939 in Edinburgh, Scotland) is an Emeritus Professor of Architecture and award-winning author of books on architecture and the cultural imagination.
Alan Balfour's work explores the relationship between cities and their buildings and desires in the culture that shaped them. A central theme in his writing is the concept of man-made environments as "landscapes of desire," reflecting both positive and negative aspects of society. Balfour's approach integrates architectural analysis with social history, examining how the physical characteristics of cities and buildings embody prevalent cultural and societal desires. This theme is exemplified in two of his works, Berlin: The Politics of Order and Classical Edinburgh: A City Divided.
Balfour's books are notable for their equal emphasis on architectural details and social historical context, providing a comprehensive view of urban development and its cultural significance.
ROCKEFELLER CENTER, Architecture as Theater: Review by Paul Goldberger, The New York Times Book Review, July 1979
Mr. Balfour knows what a stroke of luck the center's greatness was; he states that "far from being the result of cautious planning, the whole development . . . was instead the result of coincidence, evolutionary change, and brilliant speculation. The book is realistic and loving, hard-nosed and celebrating, bringing to Rockefeller Center the qualities that the center itself brings to city life.
BERLIN The Politics of Order: Review by Craig A. Gordon, historian of German diplomatic history, New York Review of Books, November 1991
A good idea of the grandiosity of Hitler’s plans for Berlin and the ruin brought upon the city by his foreign policy is provided by Alan Balfour’s book, Berlin: The Politics of Order. This ambitious work sets out to view the history of architecture and city planning from the reign of Frederick William I until the breaching of the Wall in 1989, by describing the fortunes of the Leipziger Platz and the Potsdamer Platz, which in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries formed the hub of Berlin’s vehicular traffic and one of its most important commercial and entertainment centers, but were then destroyed by Allied bombing because of their proximity to Hitler’s bunker and were finally divided by the Wall.
SOLOMON'S TEMPLE Myth, Conflict, and Faith: Review by Denis R. McNamara, Institute for Sacred Architecture Journal, Volume 24
The book’s strength lies in its readable delineation of the Temple Mount’s historical timeline. Many primary sources weave together to provide different views of the same historical events as told through the eyes of Jews, Christians, and Muslims. A compact synopsis handy for the reader interested in an introduction to the complex cultural forces of Jewish law, Hellenization, the conflict between Romans and Jews, and the emergence of Islam, it draws from hard-to-find texts and frequently proves useful for understanding biblical narratives. The Temple as object of the Christian imagination in the time of the Renaissance also proves extremely useful as an architectural typology very little discussed by architectural historians.
CLASSICAL EDINBURGH: A City Divided: From David McCrone, Emeritus Professor of Sociology, University of Edinburgh
To the sociologist, such as I am, the book echoes the famous nexus, biography and society, constructed back in the 1950s by the American sociologist, C Wright Mills. Mills argued that the key to social understanding is to weave together people’s personal stories (biography) and wider socio-economic forces (society). In this way, we learn so much more about both people’s lives and how society works and evolves. Balfour’s device, to tell his family story through the life and buildings of the city, seems to me to echo that device directly. Both come alive. We want to learn what happens to his family and their fortunes, and how these are threaded through
He was born in Edinburgh in March 1939. His childhood was shaped by war and absence He was frequently looked after by a great aunt born in 1876.
He attended The Royal High School in Edinburgh one of Scotland’s oldest public schools providing a classical education in a severe classical setting. He studied architecture at the Edinburgh College of Art (now part of Edinburgh University) where he was awarded the Edinburgh Silver Medal for Civic Design.
After Edinburgh he did graduate study in architecture at Princeton University on a Fulbright Fellowship. Though he was taught by mow internationally famous architects including Louis Kahn, Michael Graves, and Peter Eisenman, the most lasting influence was the teaching of three very different scholars –philosopher Arthur Szathmary, urban sociologist Gerald Breese, and sociologist Marion Levy. He received a Master of Fines Arts Degree in the summer of 1965.
In 1970 he returned to the United States to join the professional staff of Arthur D. Little (ADL), then the world's oldest consulting company. Significant among the research projects he was involved with was the HUD-funded, evaluation of "Project Rehab", which looked at the results of housing rehabilitation in 14 cities and the Solar Climate Control Industry Study, led by the celebrated solar engineer, Peter Glaser. In the fall of ’74 he taught a graduate studio at MIT based on the ADL research. Following this he managed the Architecture Education Study (AES), a project of MIT and Harvard for the Consortium of Eastern Schools of Architecture.
In the following decades he has served as dean of leading schools of architecture in the US including the Georgia Tech, Rice University and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. In 1991, he was elected Chairman of the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London.
Over these years he has also taught and lectured internationally. He was a guest at the American Academy in Rome in 2001 and visiting professor at UNSW in Sydney, Australia in 2007. In 2013 was appointed Advisory Professor in the College of Architecture, and Urban Planning, Tongji University, Shanghai, China. He has served on international juries including at the World Architecture Festival gatherings in Singapore and Berlin.Balfour was the year 2000 recipient of the Topaz Medallion, the highest recognition given in North America to an educator in architecture. It is given jointly by the American Institute of Architects (AIA) and the American Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA).
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In 1968 he married Anne (ne Rawlinson). They have two children.
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