Mark Wigley

Mark Wigley is Professor of Architecture and Dean Emeritus of the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP) at Columbia University. He is a historian, theorist, and critic who explores the intersection of architecture, art, philosophy, culture, and technology. He received both his Bachelor of Architecture (1979) and his Ph.D. (1987) from the University of Auckland, New Zealand. His books include We the Bacteria – Notes Toward Biotic Architecture (with Beatriz Colomina; Lars Müller, 2025), Konrad Wachsmann’s Television: Post-Architectural Transmissions (Sternberg Press, 2020), Passing Through Architecture: The 10 Years of Gordon Matta-Clark (Power Station of Art, 2019); Cutting Matta-Clark: The Anarchitecture Investigation (Lars Müller, 2018); Are We Human? Notes on an Archaeology of Design (with Beatriz Colomina; Lars Müller, 2016); Buckminster Fuller Inc.: Architecture in the Age of Radio (Lars Müller, 2015); Casa da Música / Porto (with Rem Koolhaas; Fundação Casa da Música, 2008), Constant’s New Babylon: The Hyper-Architecture of Desire (010 Publishers, 1998); White Walls, Designer Dresses: The Fashioning of Modern Architecture (MIT Press, 1995); Derrida’s Haunt: The Architecture of Deconstruction (MIT Press, 1993), and Deconstructivist Architecture (with Philip Johnson; MoMA, 1988). He has made installations in Venice Biennales and curated exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art, The Drawing Center, Columbia University, Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, Het Nieuwe Instituut, the Canadian Centre for Architecture, Power Station of Art, and Milan Triennale. He was the co-curator of the 3rd Istanbul Design Biennial in 2016 with Beatriz Colomina, the curator of The Human Insect: Antennas 1886-2017 at Het Nieuw Instituut, Rotterdam in 2018 and “Passing Through Architecture: The 10 Years of Gordon Matta-Clark” at the Power Station of Art, Shanghai in 2019–20, and co-curated We the Bacteria – Notes Toward Biotic Architecture with Beatriz Colomina at the Triennale Milano in 2025-26.


Recent articles include:

“We the Bacteria: Notes Toward Biotic Architecture,” in Maria Pederbelli (ed.), Inequalities, catalog of 24th Triennale di Milano, (Milan: Electa, 2025). [with Beatriz Colomina] [Italian and English editions]

“The Other Side of the Hill,” with Beatriz Colomina, Roberto Kolter, Geoffrey West, and Patricia Urquiola, Biennale Architettura 2025: Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective (Milan: Silvana Editoriale, 2025). [Italian and English editions]

“Inhabiting Television,” AIS/Design: Storia e Ricerche, vol. 11 no. 21, 2025

“The Self-Collecting Architecture of Jean Prouvé Furniture,” Jean Prouvé: From Furniture to Architecture, Edition Galerie Patrick Seguin, Paris, 2025. [in English and French]

“Microbiome Research and a Paradigm Shift in Urban Building Design,” The Microbiologist, December, 2024. [with Thomas Bosch and Beatriz Colomina]

“In-Out: Ideal Homes of 1956 and 2056,” TLmag (Brussels), no. 40, 2024. [with Beatriz Colomina]

“The Potential Importance of the Built-Environment Microbiome and its Impact on Human Health,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), April 25, 2024. [co-author]

“Anthony Vidler in Reverse,” October (New York), 187, 2024.

“Unsettling Chairs,” in Echoes: 50 Years of Cassina iMaestri, (Milan: Rizzoli, 2023). [with Beatriz Colomina] [English and Italian Editions]

“Architectures of Inattention,” Electra [Lisbon], no.23, 2023. [in English and Portuguese]

“Havana Syndrome: Retransmitting the Edificio Experimental;” in Rubén Gallo (ed.), Havana Modern: Critical Readings in Cuban Architecture, (Mexico City: Arquine, 2023). [English and Spanish editions]

“La luce di Lina Bo Bardi / Lina Bo Bardi’s light,” Domus (Milan), no.1083, October 2023 [with Beatriz Colomina]

“The Drawing that Ate Architecture,” Jencks Foundation, 2023.

“Keywords,” Pin-Up (New York), issue 33, Fall/Winter 2022/3.

“’And’ Anarchitectures,” Khōrein: Journal for Architecture and Philosophy (Belgrade), vol.1 no. 1, 2023.

“Architecture has Never Been Idle,” Electra (Lisbon,) no 21, June-September 2023.

“Parasitic Pedagogy: The Buckminster Fuller Teaching Machine,” in Beatriz Colomina, Ignacio G. Galan, Evangelos Kotsioris, and Anna-Maria Meister (eds.), Radical Pedagogies, (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2022).

“The Unbinding Interior of Friedl Dicker,” in Stefanie Kitzberger, Cosima Rainer, and Linda Schäler (eds.), Friedl Dicker-Brandeis: Works from the Collection of the University of Applied Arts Vienna (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2022). [English and German editions]

“The Excremental Interior,” in Lydia Kallipoliti and Areti Markopoulou (eds.), Edible: Or, The Architecture of Metabolism, (Tallin Architecture Biennale, 2002). [also online in E-flux Architecture, Sept. 2022].

“The Intolerances of Architecture,” Pari Riahi, Laure Katsaros and Michael t. David (eds.), Exactitude: On Precision and Play in Contemporary Architecture, (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2022).

“The Architecture of Disorientation,” in Francesco Stocchi (ed.), The Dream of Ulysses, (Paris: Dilecta, 2022). [in English and French]

“Time Machines,” in Matthias Sauerbruch and Louisa Hutton (eds.), The Turn of the Century: A Reader About Architecture in Europe 1990-2020, (Zurich: Lars Muller Publishers, Park Books, 2021).

“This is Not a Pipe: The Hidden Wet Community,” Andres Jaques (ed.), Flows: Bodies of Water—A Reader, (Shanghai: Power Station of Art, 2021). [in Chinese and English]

“Returning the Gift: Running Architecture in Reverse,” in Space Caviar (ed.), Non-Extractive Architecture, Volume 1: On Designing without Depletion, (Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2021).

“Chronic Whiteness,” in e-Flux “Sick Architecture” series, 2020.

“The Bacterial Clients of Modern Architecture,” in Docomomo Journal, no 62, 2020. [with Beatriz Colomina].