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Christina E. Crawford, PhD, MArch is an historian of architecture and urban form and a trained architect and urban designer whose research specialties are socialist space and social housing. She is Associate Professor of Modern and Contemporary Architecture in the Art History Department at Emory University, faculty of Emory’s Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies Program, and 2021 recipient of the Emory Williams Distinguished Undergraduate Teaching Award.

Christina received her PhD from Harvard University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, her M.Arch with distinction from the Harvard Graduate School of Design, and her B.A. in Architecture and East European Studies with distinction from Yale University. Her first book, Spatial Revolution: Architecture and Planning in the Early Soviet Union (Cornell University Press, 2022), establishes the foundations of early Soviet urban theory and practice in three seminal industrial sites: Baku, Magnitogorsk, and Kharkiv, and is the recipient of funding from the Millard Meiss Publication Fund of the College Art Association, and a Digital Publishing in the Humanities/TOME subsidy from Emory University. Christina’s new research, funded by a Getty/ACLS Fellowship in the History of Art and a Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts research and development grant explores interwar exchanges of housing expertise between the US and Europe, using Atlanta as a primary node. She has presented her work in Austria, Belgium, Canada, Russia, Switzerland, Ukraine, the UK, and the US, and has published in the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, the Journal of Urban History, Harvard Design Magazine, Future Anterior, and the Journal of Architectural Education. Her article, “From Tractors to Territory: Socialist Urbanization through Standardization” in the Journal of Urban History, was selected as the inaugural winner of the 2017 Emerging Scholar Prize, Society of Historians of East European, Eurasian, and Russian Art and Architecture (SHERA). At Harvard, Christina was the Sidney R. Knafel Dissertation Completion Fellow at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, and her doctoral dissertation won the runner up prize of the Anthony Sutcliffe Award from the International Planning History Society in 2018. She is Outgoing President of the Society of Historians of Eastern European, Eurasian and Russian Art and Architecture (SHERA) in 2022.

Christina served as Vice Consul in the U.S. Consulate in St. Petersburg, Russia, and received a Fulbright Fellowship to Ukraine, where she researched post-Soviet Ukrainian architecture and urbanism. She also worked for over a decade as an architect and urban designer in Boston and taught architectural history and theory at Northeastern University.  Her professional work included designs for urban housing, interiors for Harvard’s DuBois Institute (now Hutchins Center) for African and African American Research, master plans for local municipalities, and open space design for a waterfront city in Dubai, UAE.

Recent Publications

Peer Reviewed Books

Detroit-Moscow-Detroit: An Architecture for Industrialization, 1917-1945. Co-edited volume with Claire Zimmerman and Jean-Louis Cohen, MIT Press, forthcoming 2023.

Spatial Revolution: Architecture and Planning in the Early Soviet Union. Cornell University Press, 2022.

Peer Reviewed Articles

“Black Community Building: New Deal Programmatic Advocacy at Atlanta’s University Homes.” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 81, no. 2 (June 2022), 213-234.

“From Tractors to Territory: Socialist Urbanization through Standardization.” Journal of Urban History 44, no. 1 (2017): 54-77. Winner of the 2017 Emerging Scholar Prize from Society of Historians of Eastern European, Eurasian and Russian Art and Architecture.

“The Innovative Potential of Scarcity in SA’s Comradely Competition for Communal Housing, 1927.”  ArchiDOCT 1, no. 2 (2014), 33-53.

Chapters in Peer Reviewed Edited Volumes

“Closing the Loop: Soviet Memoirs of American Technical Consultants, 1928-34.” Detroit-Moscow-Detroit: An Architecture for Industrialization, 1917-1945. Jean-Louis Cohen, Christina E. Crawford, Claire Zimmerman, eds, MIT Press, forthcoming 2023.

Christina E. Crawford, Jean-Louis Cohen, and Claire Zimmerman. “Introduction.” Detroit-Moscow-Detroit: An Architecture for Industrialization, 1917-1945. Jean-Louis Cohen, Christina E. Crawford, Claire Zimmerman, eds, MIT Press, forthcoming 2023.

“The Case for Saving Socialist Space.” Research Companion to Landscape Architecture, ed. Ellen Braae and Henriette Steiner. London: Routledge, 2019, 260-274.

Tim Love and Christina Crawford. “Plot Logic: Character-Building through Creative Parcelisation.” In Urban Design and the Real Estate Development Process, ed. Steve Tiesdell and David Adams. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011, 92-113. Complete co-authorship.

Peer Reviewed Reviews

Review of Monotown: Urban Dreams, Brutal Imperatives by Clayton Strange. Journal of Urban Design, January 2021, vol. 26, no. 1: 133-135.

Review of Brokers of Modernity: East Central Europe and the Rise of Modernist Architects, 1910-1950 by Martin Kohlrausch. Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 79, no. 3 (Sept. 2020), 344-346.

Review of Industries of Architecture by Katie Lloyd Thomas, Tilo Amhoff, Nick Beech. Journal of Architectural Education, Nov.16, 2017.

Review of Mound of Vendome exhibition at the Canadian Centre for Architecture, curated by David Gissen. Future Anterior: Journal of Historic Preservation History Theory & Criticism 12, no. 1 (Summer 2015): 102-09.

Non-Peer Reviewed Books

Joan Busquets with Christina E. Crawford. Chicago: Two Grids Between Lake and River (Redesigning Gridded Cities series). San Francisco: ORO Editions, 2017. Co-taught the design studio on which this book is based; wrote some and edited all of the text.

Tim Love, Christina Crawford, Chris Genter, Matthew Littell, eds. Urban Housing Atlas. Boston: pinkcommabooks, 2008. Wrote/edited numerous texts; designed/drew numerous projects.

Non-Peer Reviewed Articles, Reviews, Interviews

“Love Letter to Ukraine in the Language of Architecture.” Platform, July 4, 2022, platformspace.net. 24-image photo essay and 600-word text essay.

“Atlanta Citizenship and Housing, Success and Setback.” Platform, June 14, 2021, platformspace.net. 1,500-word essay.

“In an Extraordinary Space.” Architecture Boston 20: 2 (2017): 20-23.

Christina E. Crawford with Darra Goldstein (interview). “Under the Bed is a Cool, Dark Place.” Harvard Design Magazine 43: Shelf Life (2106).

“From the Old Family—to the New.” Harvard Design Magazine 41: Family Planning (2015): 38-45.

“Soviet Planning Praxis: From Tractors to Territory.” Centerpiece (Weatherhead Center for International Affairs) 29, no. 2 (Spring 2015): 14-20.

“Genplan 101: How to Read a Socialist General Plan Drawing.” Second World Urbanity, February 6, 2015, secondworldurbanity.org. 1,500-word essay.

 

 

 

 

Media Coverage

Social Media

@cecrawford_

Country Focus

Soviet Union, Ukraine, Russia, Azerbaijan, USA

Expertise by Geography

Eastern Europe, Russia, United States

Expertise by Chronology

Modern, 20th century, 21st century

Expertise by Topic

Art & Architectural History, Material Culture, Public History, Urban History