Jean-Louis Cohen

Jean-Louis Cohen was the Sheldon H. Solow Chair in the History of Architecture at New York University’s Institute of Fine Arts.

Jean-Louis Cohen, an architect and historian, was born in Paris in 1949; he died in August 2023. His research focused on architecture and urban planning in 20th-century France, Germany, Italy, Russia, and the United States; patterns of internationalization and regional cultures; the modernization of urban form in Paris; and city planning in colonial Algeria and Morocco. Between 1998 and 2003, he led the Cité de l’architecture et du patrimoine project in Paris’ Palais de Chaillot, serving as director of the French Institute of Architecture and the Museum of French Monuments.

Cohen curated numerous exhibitions for the Pompidou Centre, the Pavillon de l’Arsenal, the Canadian Centre for Architecture, the French Institute of Architecture, and the Museum of Modern Art. His books include Le Corbusier and the Mystique of the USSR (1992), Scenes of the World to Come (1995), Casablanca: Colonial Myths and Architectural Ventures (1998, with Monique Eleb), and New York (2008).

[Author photo by Gitty Darugar]