Robin Williams, ChairB.A., University of Toronto; M.A., Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania
Pepe Hall, Office G
Phone: 912.525.6058
Fax: 912.525.6037
Robin Williams chairs the architectural history department, a position he has held since the department's founding in 1996. He teaches courses in modern European and American architecture and urbanism, as well as on research methodologies. He is also frequently a leader of off-campus programs.
Williams received his bachelor's degree in art history from the University of Toronto, where he served as a principal research assistant for an exhibition and book documenting the university's historic architecture, and as the architectural photographer for several documentation projects. He received his master's and doctoral degrees in the history of art from the University of Pennsylvania, specializing in modern architecture and urbanism. His master's degree thesis, focusing on the First Unitarian Church by the American architect Louis I. Kahn, won two essay competitions sponsored by regional chapters of the Society of Architectural Historians and was published, in part, in a study of that architect's works. His doctoral research, supported by grants from the Social Sciences Research Council of Canada and the Mellon Foundation, examined the transformation of Rome into the capital of united Italy during the late 19th century.
Williams has lectured extensively and published both on this topic and his more recent interest — the city of Savannah and its urban plan. Since 1997, he has directed the Virtual Historic Savannah Project, which has received more than $200,000 in grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Georgia Humanities Council. Williams is also an active member of committees and boards at the local and state levels concerned with heritage, preservation and planning.
Jeff EleyB.F.A., Virginia Commonwealth University; M.Arch.Hist., University of Virginia
Pepe Hall, Office F
Phone: 912.525.6053
Fax: 912.525.6037
Jeff Eley specializes in modern architecture in Europe and the United States, as well as colonial architecture in the United States. His areas of interest include domestic architecture and interiors of England from the Renaissance through the mid-19th century as well as the Arts and Crafts and Aesthetics movements. He has taught at SCAD since 1983 and has also served as the director of off-campus programs, dean of international studies, vice president for student services (1997-2000) and more recently as vice president for academic services (2000-05).
Eley serves on the Georgia National Register Review Board for the Historic Preservation Division of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources. He has a B.F.A. from Virginia Commonwealth University and a Master of Architectural History degree from University of Virginia.
Thomas GensheimerB.A., Ph.D., University of California Berkeley
Pepe Hall, Office B
Phone: 912.525.6057
Fax: 912.525.6037
Thomas Gensheimer teaches courses in non-Western architecture, with specializations in the art and architecture of Africa and the Islamic world. He received his B.A. in anthropology from the University of California at Berkeley, studying the Middle East and working on archaeological excavations at the colonial plantation of Flowerdew Hundred in Virginia and in the ancient Indus Valley city of Harappa in Pakistan. As an archaeologist, he has published articles on shell trading between Mesopotamia and the ancient Indus Valley civilization.
Gensheimer received his doctorate in architecture from the University of California at Berkeley, conducting research on Swahili architecture and cities as a Fulbright scholar in Kenya, and has lectured and published articles on the urban history of the medieval East African coast. He has traveled extensively throughout Africa, Asia and the Middle East, and was a member of the first group of foreign travelers to be permitted to cross the Khunjerab Pass from Northern Pakistan to Xinjiang via the Karakoram highway.
His current work focuses on African urban form and design, and European representations of African cities. He is also a collector of 19th-century Japanese porcelains and wood-block prints.
David GobelB.Arch., Texas Tech University; M.A., Princeton University; M.Arch.Hist., University of Virginia; Ph.D., Princeton University
Pepe Hall, Office B
Phone: 912.525.6079
Fax: 912.525.6037
David Gobel teaches courses in renaissance and baroque architecture, 20th-century architecture, urban form, theory and criticism, and garden and villa architecture. Before coming to SCAD in 1996, he taught at the Oregon School of Design and several other schools in the Portland area. He received his Bachelor of Architecture degree from Texas Tech University in 1981, Master of Architectural History degree from the University of Virginia in 1988 and Ph.D. in the history, theory and criticism of architecture from Princeton University in 1991. His research areas include: 16th-century urbanism in Spain, the theoretical writings of Philibert de l'Orme, and the architecture of the Protestant Reformation and the urban plan of Savannah.
Gobel is the recipient of several awards and fellowships including the Fulbright-Hays/Spanish government fellowship for study in Spain. With Robin Williams, he founded the biennial Savannah Symposium and has co-directed several. He was co-editor of ARRIS: The Journal of the Southeast Chapter of the Society of Architectural Historians and has also edited journals at the University of Virginia and Princeton University. Gobel is an active member of the Southeast Chapter of the Society of Architectural Historians, and served as president from 2005–07.
Celeste Lovette GuichardB.F.A., University of New Mexico; M.A., M.Phil., Ph.D., Columbia University
Pepe Hall, Office F
Phone: 912.525.6060
Fax: 912.525.6037
Celeste Lovette Guichard joined the architectural history department in 2004 and teaches courses on ancient and 19th-century architecture and urbanism. She completed her undergraduate work at the University of New Mexico where she received a B.F.A. with honors for her thesis on the New Town of Edinburgh, a project she researched while on a year-long exchange at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland.
She received a Ph.D. from Columbia University where she specialized in ancient Greek architecture, particularly that of the Hellenistic period, with a minor concentration in 18th- and 19th-century European urbanism. Her thesis focused on the interrelation of architecture and ritual in Hellenistic Oracular temples and required on-site study at sites throughout Greece and Turkey; this fieldwork was sponsored by grants from the Mellon, Kress and Whiting foundations. She has also participated in excavations sponsored by the American School of Classical Studies at Corinth, Greece, and worked on a separate project sponsored by Notre Dame University to reconstruct the first Temple to Apollo at Corinth.
E.G. Daves RossellB.A., Ph.D., University of California Berkeley
Pepe Hall, Office D
Phone: 912.525.6054
Fax: 912.525.6037
E.G. Daves Rossell teaches American architecture and urbanism, vernacular architecture and cultural landscape. His research interests range from field study of the built environment of Savannah and its surrounding Lowcountry to exploration of the history of technology and particularly illuminating engineering, as well as appreciating cross-cultural comparisons of material culture.
Rossell founded and directs the Savannah and the Lowcountry Initiative, an educational effort engaged in uncovering, recording, preserving and presenting history through archival research, fieldwork, drawing and writing on the area's architecture and cultural landscape. The initiative provides opportunities for students, many of whom have never before done primary research, had their research impact local communities, and seen that research and effect published. SALI was developed out of Rossell's directing the 28th annual meeting of the Vernacular Architecture Forum: Savannah and the Lowcountry.
Rossell is co-editor of a forthcoming University of Virginia book titled Commemoration and the City: Monuments, Memorialization and Meaning. He chairs the Chatham County Historic Preservation Commission and has served as chair of the Georgia National Register Review Board, as chair of Vernacular Georgia, and as co-editor of ARRIS: The Journal of the Southeast Society of Architectural Historians.
Karl F. SchulerB.A., Humboldt State University; M.A., Ph.D., New York University
Pepe Hall, Office B
Phone: 912.525.6056
Fax: 912.525.6037
Karl F. Schuler teaches courses in medieval, monastic and fortified architecture. He received his B.A. in art from Humboldt State University and his M.A. and Ph.D. in art history and archaeology from the New York University Institute of Fine Arts, specializing in medieval and Islamic history and archaeology. His dissertation on the 12th-century chapterhouse murals at the royal monastery of Sigena in Aragon has led to various articles and presentations on medieval chapterhouse decoration. His current research interests include Spanish mission architecture and fortifications.
Prior to joining the architectural history department in 1996, he served as a research assistant in the medieval department of the Metropolitan Museum of Art under a Chester Dale Fellowhip and an Andrew W. Mellon Fellowhip, and taught at Kean College, City University of New York and Manhattanville College. He is a retired veteran with 27 years combined service in the U.S. Navy and U.S. Coast Guard Reserve and serves as a member of the Coast Guard Auxillary. He is a board member of the Coastal Georgia Archaeological Association and active in local historical organizations.