Directory

Alexander Wood is a historian of American architecture and urbanism. He is the author of Building the Metropolis: Architecture, Construction, and Labor in New York City, 1880-1935. His research has been published in the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Buildings & Landscapes, and other academic journals.

His research has been supported by fellowships at the New-York Historical Society, the Boston Athenaeum, and the Temple Hoyne Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture at Columbia University.

He received a Ph.D. from Columbia University, an S.M.Arch.S. from MIT, and a B.Arch. from the Cooper Union.

 

Industry Experience

Selected Publications

• 2025 – Building the Metropolis: Architecture, Construction, and Labor in New York City, 1880-1935 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2025).
• 2024 – “Teamwork at McKim, Mead & White,” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 83 (September 2024): 340-357.
• 2023 – “The Structural Ironworkers of New York City, 1845-1895,” Buildings & Landscapes 30 (Fall/Spring 2023), 59-79.

Fellowships & Grants

• 2024 – American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies / Boston Athenaeuum Fellowship
• 2021-2022 – Helen and Robert Appel Fellowship in History and Technology, New-York Historical Society
• 2019 – Global Architectural History Teaching Collaborative Grant
• 2016 – Buell Center Fellowship, Temple Hoyne Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture, Columbia University

Selected Presentations

• 2024 – “The Life and Times of a New York Carpenter in the 1890s,” Production Studies International Conference, Newcastle University, March 27, 2024.
• 2022 – “The Bureaucracy of Building: The New York Department of Buildings,” Society for American City and Regional Planning History, October 22, 2022.
• 2022 – “Building New York in the Gilded Age,” New-York Historical Society, May 9, 2022.
• 2021 – “Who Built New York?: The Case of the Structural Ironworkers, 1865-1895,” Vernacular Architectural Forum, May 21, 2021.
• 2019 – “The Invisible Assistant: The Designer in American Architectural Practice, 1880-1917,” Society of Architectural Historians, April, 2019.

Professional Organizations

• Society of Architectural Historians
• Vernacular Architecture Forum
• Society for American City and Regional Planning History
• Global Architectural History Teaching Collaborative