Barry Bergdoll teaches architectural history at Columbia University, where he has been on the faculty for nearly two decades and currently serves as Chair of the Department of Art History. A specialist in nineteenth and twentieth century European and American architectural history, he is the author of numerous works including monographs on the 19th century architects Karl Friedrich Schinkel (New York: Rizzoli, 1994) and Léon Vaudoyer (New York: The Architectural History Foundation, 1994) and a survey volume in the Oxford History of Art Series, European Architecture 1750-1890 (Oxford, 2000).
He has curated several major architectural exhibitions, including "Mies in Berlin," a collaboration with Terence Riley of the Museum of Modern Art, which was shown in New York, Berlin, Barcelona and London in 2001-3 and was accompanied by the award-winning catalogue Mies in Berlin. Earlier exhibitions include "Le Panthéon: Symbole des Révolutions," organized by the Canadian Centre for Architecture and shown in Paris and Montréal in 1989 in conjunction with the Bicentennial of the French Revolution; "Les Vauoyders: une dynastie d'architectes," held at the Musée d'Orsay, Paris in 1992; and "Mastering McKim's Plan: Columbia's First Century on Morningside Heights," held at Columbia University in 1997.
Bergdoll has lectured widely for both academic and general audiences and has participated in the production of several documentary films on architecture. He is currently completing a book on Marcel Breuer. In Spring 2005 he will be a fellow at the American Academy in Berlin to begin a new project on interchanges between the natural sciences and architecture in the Nineteenth Century.
Valerie Steele is Director and Chief Curator of The Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology and Editor of the quarterly journal Fashion Theory: The Journal of Dress, Body & Culture. She received her Ph.D. in cultural history from Yale University. Dr. Steele is the author of numerous books, including: Fashion: Italian Style (Yale University Press, 2003), The Fan (Rizzoli, 2002), The Corset: A Cultural History (Yale University Press, October 2001), Red Dress (Rizzoli, September 2001), Handbags: A Lexicon of Style [with Laird Borrelli] (Scriptum, 1999;Rizzoli, 2000), Shoes: A Lexicon of Style (Rizzoli and Scriptum, 1999), China Chic: East Meets West [with John S. Major] (Yale University Press, 1999), Fifty Years of Fashion: New Look to Now (Yale University Press, 1997; Paris: Adam Biro, 1998), Fetish: Fashion, Sex and Power (Oxford University Press, 1996; French, German, Brazilian editions), Women of Fashion: 20th-Century Designers (Rizzoli, 1991), Men and Women: Dressing the Part [with Claudia Kidwell] (Smithsonian Institution Press, 1989), Paris Fashion: A Cultural History (Oxford University, 1988; revised edition, Berg Publishers, 1998), and Fashion and Eroticism (Oxford University Press, 1985).
Her books have been reviewed in dozens of periodicals and newspapers as diverse as the Italian fashion magazine Donna ("originale... molto interesanti... brilliante"), the New York Times (both Sunday and daily editions), and the front page of the Los Angeles Times Book Review ("required reading").
Since she was appointed Chief Curator of The Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology in 1997, Dr. Steele has organized major exhibitions including Fashion: Italian Style, Femme Fatale, The Corset: Fashioning the Body, China Chic: East Meets West, Shoes: A Lexicon of Style, Fifty Years of Fashion: New Look to Now, Isabel and Ruben Toledo: A Marriage of Art and Fashion, and Claire McCardell and the American Look. She was named Acting Director of the Museum in October, 2000 and was appointed Director in early 2003. From 1985 to 1997 she was on the faculty of the Graduate Program in Museum Studies at FIT.
She has appeared on Good Morning America, The Oprah Winfrey Show, The Today Show, Fashion Television, Paris Modes and many other television programs. After appearing on the PBS special, The Way We Wear, she was described in the Washington Post as one of "fashion's brainiest women." She was featured in Unmentionables: A Brief History of Underwear (Arts & Entertainment), and in the four-part television series Undressed: The Story of Fashion (BBC 4, BRAVO).
Dr. Steele lectures frequently at universities and museums around the world. She has contributed essays to many books and periodicals, ranging from Aperture and Artforum to Visionnaire and Vogue, including The Yale Journal of Criticism and her own journal, Fashion Theory. Frequently quoted in the media, she was the subject of a profile in Forbes (8/3/92): "Fashion Professor," and in the New York Times (January 1999): "A High-Heeled Historian."
Steven Heller has been the art director of the New York Times Book Review since 1980. For the preceding three he was art director for the OP-Ed page. In addition, he served as editor of the AIGA Journal of Graphic Design for over fifteen years.
As author, co-author, and editor he has produced over 70 books, most on the history and practice of graphic design, illustration, and satiric art. These include Man Bites Man: Two Decades of Satiric Art (A&W Publishers), Art Against War (Abbeville Press), Graphic Style: From Victorian to Post Modern (Abrams), Innovators of American Illustration (Watson Guptil), Designing For Children (Watson Guptil), Graphic Wit: The Art of Humor in Design (Watson Guptil), Borrowed Design: The Use and Abuse of Historical Form (Van Nostrand), Jackets Required: The Illustrated American Book Jacket 1920-1950 (Chronicle Books), Cover Story: The Illustrated American Magazine Cover 1900 - 1950 (Chronicle Books), a series of Art Deco design books on Italian, Dutch, American, British, and French graphic design (Chronicle), Typology: Type Design from the Victorian Epoch to the Digital Era (Chronicle), Design Literacy: Understanding Graphic Design (Allworth Press), Design Literacy (continued) (Allworth Press), Design Dialogues (Allworth Press), The Education of A Graphic Designer (Allworth Press), Swastika: A Symbol Beyond Redemption (Allworth Press), Paul Rand (Phaidon Press), The Graphic Design Timeline (Allworth Press), Graphic Design History (Allworth Press), Texts on Type (Allworth Press), Genius Moves: Icons of Graphic Design (North Light Books), and Red Scared: The Commie Menace in Propaganda and Popular Culture (Chronicle Books).
Heller is a co-editor of the first anthology of graphic design criticism, Looking Closer: Critical Writings on Graphic Design (Allworth Press) and its companions Looking Closer II and Looking Closer III: Critical Writings on Graphic Design. He is a contributing editor to Print, Eye, I.D., and (formerly) U&lc. Currently he is at work editing a book on the Push Pin Graphic and writing a biography of Alvin Lustig.
Heller's interests include curatorial work, and he has been curator for a number of exhibitions, including The Art of Simplicissimus, Art Against War, The Malik Verlag, and Typographic Treasures: W.A. Dwiggins. He is the recipient of three National Endowment for the Arts Design Grants, for research into the lives and works of W.A. Dwiggins and Lucian Bernhard. He received the 1997 New York Art Directors Club "Special Educators Award," the 1999 AIGA Medal for Lifetime Achievement, and the 7th Herschel Levit Award in 2000. He was the director of the School of Visual Arts' Modernism & Eclecticism: A History of American Graphic Design symposium.
In addition to his responsibilities at the New York Times and his many writing projects, Heller is also the co-chairperson of the MFA/Design program of the School of Visual Arts.
Shashi Caan is Chair of the Interior Design Program at Parsons School of Design. She also is the founder of her own interdisciplinary design practice, the Shashi Caan Collective.
Her professional career has included experience at some of New York City's most prominent design firms, including: Swanke Hayden Connell Architects; Gensler; and, most recently, Skidmore, Owings, & Merrill where she was design director and associate partner.
The recipient of numerous awards, Caan is a sought–after public speaker and her work has been featured extensively both on television and in major national magazines. This year Caan received the prestigious Designer of the Year Award from Contract Magazine. The citation for the award noted her significant past accomplishments as well as her vision of where the design profession should be going in terms of practice, education, research, creativity and responsibility.
In September of 2002 Caan was named director of the Interior Design Program at Parsons School of Design. She is an active participant in a wide variety of professional organizations and associations. Currently she is vice president of professional development on the International Interior Design Association international board of directors. She also sits on the board of Interior Design Legislation for New York State.
Caan received her BFA (with honors) from the Edinburgh College of Art. She also has two master degrees from Pratt Institute, one in industrial design and also one in architecture.
George H. Marcus is adjunct assistant professor of the history of art at the University of Pennsylvania and a specialist in the history of modern and contemporary product design. His publication What Is Design Today? (2002) inspired the exhibition of the same name (which he co-organized) at the Design Center at Philadelphia University in 2002-2003.
Marcus is the co-author of a major survey of the field, Landmarks of Twentieth-Century Design (1993), and he has written a number of books on specialized subjects including Le Corbusier: Inside the Machine for Living (2001), Design in the Fifties: When Everyone Went Modern (1998), and Functionalist Design: An Ongoing History (1995).
A graduate of Brandeis University, he pursued graduate studies in art history at Columbia University and served as research editor of the McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of World Art. For thirty years he was in charge of publications and graphic design at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.