Joanna Merwood-Salisbury

Joanna Merwood-Salisbury an architectural historian whose research focuses on architecture and urbanism in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century United States, with a particular specialization in the Chicago School of architecture. Her book, Chicago 1890: The Skyscraper and the Modern City (2009), describes the development of the early Chicago skyscrapers between 1880 and the turn of the twentieth century, understanding them not only as important artifacts in the history of architecture, but also as sites for a contentious debate about the future of the industrial city. Related work explores the design of public spaces and buildings in modern cities and the socio-political contexts in which they are conceptualized and used. This is the subject of her forthcoming book, Design for the Crowd: Patriotism and Protest in Union Square (University of Chicago Press) which investigates the history of Union Square in New York City as both a geographical location with real formal characteristics and as the symbol of competing ideas about the operation of democracy in the United States. She is also interested in the historical inter-relationships between architecture and interior design.