James Heard

James Heard is a Doctoral Student in Architecture at Columbia GSAPP and licensed architect in California. He received his BArch at Virginia Tech and SMArchS with a focus in History, Theory, and Criticism at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His master’s thesis, “‘Professionals in a Soviet America’: Federal Housing Policy, the Popular Front, and Architects in Los Angeles, 1919–1947,” explored the intersection of housing policy discourse and political activism in Southern California. He is currently researching the relationship between labor organizing, surveillance, and disciplinary formations in the early 20th century.

James is the recipient of a Graham Grant for the 2021–2022 exhibit The Architects Collaborative: Tracing a Diffuse Architectural Authorship, 1945–1995, along with Gabriel Cira and Emma Pfeiffer, and is working on a Graham-funded followup exhibit, Stull & Lee: Black Architecture Vision for an Infrastructural City, with Gabriel Cira and Julian Phillips. He is a longtime member of The Architecture Lobby and was the organization’s former National Design Coordinator.