Jean-Louis Cohen

Jean-Louis Cohen studied at School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences and Special School of Architecture. The recorded working language is French, Spanish and English. The field of work recorded is history of architecture and architecture. Employment is recorded with New York University, ENSA Paris-Val de Seine and French Urbanism Institute. Distinctions recorded are Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres, Officer of Arts and Letters, Alice Davis Hitchcock Award and Guggenheim Fellowship.

• Name — Jean-Louis Cohen • Born — 20 July 1949 • Birthplace — Paris, France • Died — 7 August 2023 • Education — * École Spéciale d'Architecture • École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales • Occupation — * Architect • Architectural historian • Awards — Chevalier des Arts et Lettres

Jean-Louis Cohen was born on 20 July 1949 in Paris, grandson of Marcel Cohen, a French scholar of Semitic languages, and son of the biologist and journalist Francis Cohen (journalist) and the chemical engineer Marie-Élisa Nordmann-Cohen, a survivor of Auschwitz. He was trained as an architect at the École Spéciale d'Architecture and at the Unité Pédagogique n° 6 in Paris, graduating in 1973 and then receiving his post-graduate diploma Architecte DPLG (Architecte diplômé par le gouvernement) in 1979. He received his Ph.D. in Art History from the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in 1985. After directing the Architectural Research Program at the French Ministry of Housing, from 1983 to 1996 he held a Research Professorship at the School of Architecture Paris-Villemin, and from 1996 to 2004, a Chair in Town-Planning History at the Institut Français d'Urbanisme, University of Paris. In 1994 he was named the Sheldon H. Solow Chair for the History of Architecture at New York University's Institute of Fine Arts, where he taught, and he lectured widely at North American universities. In 1998 he was appointed to develop the Cité de l'Architecture et du Patrimoine in Paris which opened in 2007. He was director of the project until 2003. In the course of his career he curated many major exhibitions including "The Lost Vanguard", at the Museum of Modern Art (2007); "Scenes of the World to Come", "Architecture in Uniform" and "Building a New New World: Amerikanizm in Russian Architecture" at the Canadian Centre for Architecture (1995, 2011, and 2019); "Paris-Moscou" (1979) and the centennial show "L'aventure Le Corbusier" (1987), both at the Centre Georges Pompidou; "Le Corbusier, tainy tvorchestva," at the Pushkin Museum in Moscow (2012); "Interférences – architecture, Allemagne, France" at the Musée d’art moderne et contemporain de Strasbourg, and the Deutsches Architekturmuseum, Frankfurt (2013); and "Le Corbusier: An Atlas of Modern Landscapes" at New York's Museum of Modern Art in 2013. In 2013 he was also appointed Commissioner of the French Pavilion for the 14th International Architecture Exhibition (Venice Biennale, 2014). Cohen was made a Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2001. He is the recipient of the 2003 Medal for Architectural Analysis from the Académie d'Architecture and the 2010 Schelling Architecture Theory Prize in architectural theory. Two of his books won the Grand Prix du livre from the Académie d'Architecture—Scènes de la vie future: l'architecture européenne et la tentation de l'Amérique 1893-1960 (1996) and Architecture en uniforme: projeter et construire pour la seconde guerre mondiale (2012). In 2012, he was awarded a Graham Foundation Individual Grant for the publication of his forthcoming history of French Architectural Modernism by Reaktion Books. He was a Fellow of the John S. Guggenheim Foundation for 2013. In 2013 the Collège de France in Paris appointed him for three years to hold a chair devoted to Architecture and Urban Form. In 2021 he was appointed the inaugural Penelope Visiting Professor in Architectural History at the University of Sydney, Australia. Jean-Louis Cohen died on 7 August 2023, at the age of 74. The Canadian Centre for Architecture holds his archives.

• Paris-Moscou, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, 31 May to 5 November 1979 • L'aventure Le Corbusier, 1887-1965, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, 8 October 1987 to 3 January 1988 • Scenes of the World to Come: European Architecture and the American Challenge, 1893–1960, Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal, 14 June 1995 to 14 September 1995 • The Lost Vanguard: Soviet Modernist Architecture, 1922–32 Photographs by Richard Pare, Museum of Modern Art, New York, 18 July to 29 October 2007 • Architecture in Uniform: Designing and Building for the Second World War, Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal, 13 April 2011 to 18 September 2011 • Le Corbusier: Secrets of Creativity: Between Painting and Architecture, Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow, 25 September 2012 to 18 November 2012 • Interférences/Interferenzen: Architecture Allemagne-France, 1800-2000, Musée d’art moderne et contemporain de Strasbourg, 30 March to 21 July 2013 and Deutsches Architekturmuseum, Frankfurt, 3 October 2013 to 12 January 2014 • Le Corbusier: An Atlas of Modern Landscapes, Museum of Modern Art, New York, 15 June to 23 September 2013 • Building a New New World: Amerikanizm in Russian Architecture, Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal, 12 November 2019 to 26 July 2020

• Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters (2015)