David Karmon

Visual Arts Department Professor, Department Chair Ph.D., Harvard University M. Arch., Yale School of Architecture Fields: Early modern art, architecture, and urbanism

Biography

David Karmon is Professor and Chair of the Department of Visual Arts at Holy Cross. Author of Architecture and the Senses in the Italian Renaissance: The Varieties of Architectural Experience (Cambridge University Press, 2021) and The Ruin of the Eternal City: Antiquity and Preservation in Renaissance Rome (Oxford University Press, 2011), his writings on architecture, urbanism, and the history of archaeology have appeared in numerous journals, anthologies, and exhibition catalogues. He has received numerous accolades for his work, including the Lily Auchincloss / Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Post-Doctoral Rome Prize in Renaissance and Early Modern Studies at the American Academy in Rome, as well as fellowships from the Institute of Advanced Studies at Princeton, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Newberry Library, the Clark Art Institute, the Canadian Centre for Architecture, the Bogliasco Foundation, and Dumbarton Oaks. As Book Review Editor for Europe, Asia, and Africa before 1750 (2018-20), and Chief Editor at the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians (2021-23), his expertise extends across many areas of the global built environment. He is currently working on a new book on Renaissance architecture and natural history.

Courses

These typically involve the close study of objects and sites, and thematic approaches to situate these works within broader social and cultural contexts.

• ENVS 199 Introduction to the Environmental Humanities
• VAHI 111 History of Pre-Modern Global Architecture
• VAHI 112 History of Modern Global Architecture
• VAHI 137 Destruction and Renewal
• VAHI 205 Global Commerce in 15c Italy
• VAHI 206 Art and Antiquity in 16c Italy
• VAHI 207 Art, Science, and Power in the 17c
• VAHI 350 City Nature
• VAHI 400 Concentration Seminar
• VAHI 420 Fenwick Tutorial
• HNRS 495 Honors Thesis

Research

News

• David Karmon and Sara Mitchell, “All Roads Lead to Rome” 
• UMass Amherst Department of Architecture Lectures and Events, Fall 2023
• Dumbarton Oaks Announces 2022-2023 Summer and Academic Year Fellows and Project Grants
• SAH Connects Panel, “Sensing Architecture,” with Niall Atkinson, Joseph Clarke, David Karmon, Bissera Pentcheva, and Mark Smith (3 December 2021)

• Lecture video: “A Multisensory Approach to the History of Renaissance Architecture” (8 October 2021)

  Student-Generated Urban Studies Minor Debuts at Holy Cross (23 September 2021)

  Meet David Karmon, the new editor of the JSAH (13 April 2021)

  New JSAH Editorial Staff Appointments (26 January 2021)

  Four Holy Cross Faculty Members Promoted to Professor (30 October 2020)

  Barclay Ballard, “The Cost of Restoring Italy’s Historic Landmarks,” Business Destinations (28 February 2018)

  Evangelia Stefanakos, “Visual Arts Professor Receives Prestigious Fellowship to Conduct Research in Rome on Architecture and the Senses” (4 January 2016)

  Rome Prize Winners 2015-16, American Academy in Rome (22 April 2015)