Aaron Tobey
In addition to being a PhD candidate, Aaron is a critic at the Rhode Island School of Design where he teaches in the school’s graduate representation sequence. His work seeks to combine interests in historical and contemporary technologies as well as organizations of architectural practice to unpack the latent politics of systems of architectural production. This work builds on interests in the role of technology and architecture in political subject formation that have been the topics of previous grant-funded research including a 4-month transoceanic voyage aboard a cargo ship. Aaron’s research has been presented at the Society of Architectural Historian annual conference, the Society of Architectural Historians Australia New Zealand, the Buell Center Dissertation Colloquium, and as part of the Architecture, Media, Politics conference series. His writing as well as his collaborations with his partner Malcolm Rio have been featured in Architecture and Culture, Thresholds, the Journal of Architectural Education and several other venues. He holds a bachelors of science in architecture from the University of Cincinnati as well as a master of architecture from the Rhode Island School of Design and has worked professionally for Fougeron Architecture (San Francisco, CA), Studio Luz Architects (Boston, MA), and the rendering consultancy Studio AMD (Providence, RI). When not teaching or researching you can find Aaron running on a nearby trail or playing hockey at a nearby ice rink.
Project Summary
My dissertation, “Drawing Management: Corporate Organization, International Practice, and the Making of Computer Aided Design,” develops a history of contemporary architectural production tools by examining how practices and metaphors from the field of organizational management along with the agendas of a range of global actors were brought together in the work of large US architecture firms between 1965 and 1995.
Research Area Keywords
Computer Aided Design, History of Technology, Practice Studies, Postmodernism, Saudi Arabia