Geoffrey H. Baker

Born in 1931, Geoffrey H. Baker was formerly Richard Koch Professor and is currently Professor Emeritus at Tulane University, New Orleans. He has served as a visiting Professor at the University of Arkansas and Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of North Carolina. Following a period in architectural practice he was appointed lecturer in the School of Architecture at the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 1964. In the 1970s he was a member of the course team who developed Open University course A 305, 'History of Architecture and Design, 1890-1939.' As Reader at Brighton Polytechnic School of Architecture he pursued research into the architecture of Ahrends, Burton and Koralek. Whilst teaching in the United States he wrote and presented a video on Richard Meier's Atheneum at New Harmony, and as part of his teaching at Tulane became interested in the phenomenology of architecture. He has written numerous articles on architectural design and authored the following: Le Corbusier: An analysis of Form, 1984, Le Corbusier: Early works by Charles-Edouard Jeanneret-Gris, 1987. Design Strategies in Architecture, 1989. Le Corbusier: The Creative Search, 1996. Antoine Predock, 1997. The Architecture of James Stirling and his partners James Gowan and Michael Wilford, 2011. Great Cities and the Spirit of Place. Volume: 1 Siena, 2013. Geoffrey Baker has lectured extensively in Europe, the United States and the Far East. In recent years he joined summer schools in Siena led by Professor Rene´ Diaz of the University of Kansas. This annual gathering, in a city that captures the essence of genius loci, has illuminated his understanding of not only Siena, but the surrounding region of Tuscany. In the company of enthusiastic students from the School of Architecture at Lawrence, it was the richness of these experiences that inspired this volume and led to the idea for a series discussing Spirit of Place.