• Doctoral Student Award in Architecture, Taubman College, University of Michigan, 2017
• Sweetland Junior Writing Fellow University of Michigan, 2017
• Rackham International Research Award, University of Michigan, 2016
• Rackham One-Term Dissertation Fellowship, University of Michigan, 2015
• Floyd A. Naramore Memorial Fund, University of Washington, 2011

Lori Smithey is an architectural historian, theorist, and design educator. Smithey has taught at SUNY Alfred State, Tulane University, and Kendall College of Art and Design. Her research focuses on social and environmental challenges within the built environment through the lenses of disciplinary structures of power, identity narratives, and creative agency. Operating at the intersection of social history and design theory, she specializes in the history of modern architectural thought, from the Enlightenment to contemporary globalization, with additional expertise in nineteenth-century France and postmodern America. Her current project examines decadence as a barometer for a range of Western biases and their variability over time. This investigation into architecture’s interior modes of thought and production accounts for gaps between the field’s theoretically professed intentions and its materially based socio-spatial impact. Lori’s recent work has been published in the Oxford Handbook of Decadence, Journal of Architectural Education, and TEXT: Journal of Writing and has been presented at SAH, SAHANZ, ACSA, and CAA.

• Architectural History
• Architectural Theory and Criticism
• Architectural Design

• “Architecture: Constructing Decadence” in The Oxford Handbook of Decadence, eds. Jane Desmarais & David Weir, Oxford UK: Oxford University Press, 2021.
• “Immersed in Aqueous Atmospheres: Philip Johnson’s Open Glass” in Journal of Architectural Education 73:1 Atmospheres, ed. Bressani, 2019.
• “Decadent by Design: Interplays Between Architecture and Decadent Literature” in TEXT: Journal of Writing and Writing Courses, special issue: Writing l Architecture, 2019.
• “Charles Moore’s Watermelon Pyramid” in PLAY with the Rules, ACSA Conference Proceedings, 2018.
• “Ralph Adams Cram: Subverting the Collapse of Social and Artistic Value” in Column 5 Journal of Architecture, University of Washington, 2011.