George Dodds, Ph.D
Exhibition CuratorWhen this exhibition was mounted, George Dodds , Phd, was first Alvin and Sally Beaman Professor (2012-2022) in the University of Tennessee’s School of Architecture and the College of Architecture and Design’s (CoAD) first James R. Cox Professor (2006-09). A Distinguished Professor of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture since 2007, effective December 31, 2022, Professor George Dodds, has stepped down from the faculty of architecture at the University of Tennessee to pursue other research and administrative opportunties outside of the academy.
Dr. Dodds, joined the School of Architecture in 2000, immediately following the completion of his doctorate at the University of Pennsylvania. Before Knoxville, he was a Fellow at Harvard's Dumbarton Oaks Research Library in Washington, DC, and taught at Penn State University, Temple University, The University of the Arts, and Penn.
Since 1985, Dr. Dodds has taught over 2,500 students in design studios, history/theory seminars and lectures, including Giancarlo De Carlo’s International Laboratory for Architecture and Urbanism, at Venice, Italy (1999), as The Mickel Chair at Clemson University (2009), and helped found CoAD’s Landscape Architecture Program (now School)
Professor Dodds organized (with Architect Guido Pietropoli of Rovigo, Italy) “A House and a Door,” (2011), the first US-based exhibition of the drawings of the Italian architect Carlo Scarpa (1906-1978) in four decades; and curated, “Learning from Piranesi,” (Spring 2021), both at the UT Ewing Gallery of Art + Architecture, Knoxville.
While serving as Associate Dean for Academic Affair and Research, and Chair of the Architecture Graduate Program (2011-14), he helped establish the Governor’s Chair for Energy + Urbanism; was honored with the UTK Chancellor’s Award for Advising; created a multi-year ($750,000) Chancellor’s Fellowships Program to fund the education of dozens of graduate architecture and landscape architecture students; reestablished the school’s local chapter of the National Organization of Minority Architecture Students (NOMAS); and expanded the School of Architecture’s study abroad opportunities, in Rome, Italy, and Krakow Poland – the former under the aegis of the SEC Rome Alliance.
Kelly Headden, AIA, Executive VP & COO of BarberMcMurry Architects (BMA), Knoxville, commented: “We thank Dr. Dodds for his advocacy and stewardship of the inaugural BMA Endowed Professorship, Larry Scarpa FAIA (2013). Larry, now an AIA Gold Medalist, was the first of many successes.” Craig Reschke, AIA, a founding partner at Future Firm at Chicago, added, “As a first-generation college student at UTK, George’s teaching and guidance created an undergraduate foundation upon which I built my career; I can’t thank him enough for the magnitude of that impact.”
The Executive Editor of the Journal of Architectural Education (2007-11), Dr. Dodds has published two books, over 80 scholarly essays, book chapters, and works of architectural and urban criticism in professional journals and newspapers. He clarifies: “I am less retiring than re-focusing, with several book projects and articles to complete, along with my Directorship of The Tennessee Foundation for Conservation and Stewardship, which includes designed and natural landscapes, buildings.”
Dodds has published two books: Building Desire: On the Barcelona Pavilion (Routledge, 2005) and Body and Building: Essays on the Changing Relation of Body and Architecture (MIT Press, 2002), with Robert Tavernor, more than 50 scholarly articles, reviews, editorials, and commentaries, and over 30 topical articles for his column on the built environment, “Architecture Matters,” for the Knoxville Mercury, (2015-17). He practiced in offices in Detroit, Washington D.C., and Philadelphia, and is currently the Executve Director of the Tennessee Foundation for Conservation and Stewardship.