David Leatherbarrow

Who is David Leatherbarrow?

David Leatherbarrow is Professor of Architecture and Chair of the Graduate Group in Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania School of Design, Philadelphia, where he has taught since 1984. He received his B.Arch. from the University of Kentucky and holds a Ph.D. in Art from the University of Essex. He has also taught in England, at Cambridge University and the University of Westminster.

He is primarily known for his contributions to the field of architectural phenomenology. Questions of how architecture appears, how architecture is perceived, and how topography shapes architecture often direct his research.

He is influenced by architectural theorists Dalibor Vesely and Joseph Rykwert, who both taught at Essex in the 1970s and also influenced Alberto Pérez-Gómez and numerous other scholars in the field of architectural phenomenology and history.