ABSTRACT
David Leatherbarrow offered insight on the PhD in history and theory of architecture, at the School of Design, University of Pennsylvania. Leatherbarrow discussed his thirty-year tenure at PENN and the pedagogical shifts brought by PhD program directors, offering his reflections on the periods when Joseph Rykwert, and later Marco Frascari chaired the program. He situated the PhD program in the North American context and elaborated on research approaches pursued by doctoral students. The program is characterized by a wide historical scope, a polylingual orientation, and a disciplinary focus. He answered questions about the relations of the program to phenomenology and the involvement of Dalibor Vesely, who taught a seminar class at Penn for a period. Leatherbarrow discussed his research approach in architectural theory, answering questions about his copious scholarship over a decades-long career.
