Brian Zugay is an architectural historian of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. He teaches a range of advanced courses on modernism and American architecture, notably the modern architecture survey and various topics relating to the history, design, and influence of the skyscraper. His courses draw upon his training in architecture, art and architectural history, decorative arts, and material culture, and explore not just critical design issues, but broader humanistic and cultural concerns. He has received the President’s Award for Excellence in Teaching from both Brown University and Texas Tech.
Dr. Zugay is a recognized authority on religious architecture in the United States. His research explores institutionalized efforts by denominations to establish church-building standards and to control design practices. He is currently working on a study of nineteenth-century church extension boards and their development of a mail-order church plan industry. Dr. Zugay’s research also balances top-down design intentions with grass-roots “people-in-the-pews” realities. Another project, “Model Giving: Childhood Religious Philanthropy and the Church Building,” explores how national directives to foster beneficence with church-building campaigns promoted church model-making activities in Sunday School classes and the proliferation of church-shaped collection banks. These objects not only reinforced architectural and funding objectives, they cultivated a unique symbolic attachment between children and their church building.
Ph.D., History of Art and Architecture, Brown University
A.M., History of Art and Architecture, Brown University
B.A., Architecture and History, Carnegie Mellon University