Richard Bartholomew, FAIA, FAAR is a retired architect and city planner whose professional career focused on urban design. A Fellow of the American Institute of Architects and the American Academy in Rome, his 45 years of practice include 25 years as a partner in the internationally-known planning and design firm Wallace Roberts & Todd. In addition to his professional practice, Richard served for over 20 years as adjunct faculty at the University of Pennsylvania’s graduate School of Design. Awarded the Rome Prize in Architecture, Bartholomew holds Master of Architecture and B.A. degrees from the University of Pennsylvania and was a Thouron Scholar at Cambridge University, England.

Izzy Kornblatt is an architectural critic, historian, and curator with an interest in how social, cultural, and economic forces shape the built environment. He looks at buildings not as objects but as a lens through which to understand the social world. Originally from Northampton, Massachusetts, he studied philosophy at Swarthmore College and design studies at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. Much of his research has centered around the architecture of Philadelphia, and he received the Graduate School of Design’s 2019 Design Studies Thesis Prize for his study “Architecture for a New World: Louis Kahn and Philadelphia.” He has contributed to several books, published in leading design publications, and curated acclaimed exhibitions, among other projects.

John Lobell is a professor of architecture at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York, where he has taught since 1969. His courses have included design, planning, Kahn and Venturi, Frank Lloyd Wright, global architecture, creativity, and the social impact of technology. He is part of the team that teaches the architectural history and theory survey. Lobell studied architecture at the University of Pennsylvania from 1959 to 1966 and received a post-professional master’s degree for work on architecture and structures of consciousness under G. Holmes Perkins. Subsequent to his architecture education, Lobell studied with a range of important cultural figures including mythologist Joseph Campbell, social critic Paul Goodman, Buddhist master Chogyam Trungpa, shaman Michael Harner, and Tai Chi master Cheng Man-Ch’ing. Lobell’s widely ranging interests and research address the fundamental role of creativity in our lives and how new technologies change our consciousness. He has written numerous articles and has lectured throughout the world. He is the author of several books, including Louis Kahn: Architecture as Philosophy, Between Silence and Light: Spirit in the Architecture of Louis I. Kahn, Architecture and Structures of Consciousness, Joseph Campbell: The Man and His Ideas, and Visionary Creativity: How New Worlds are Born.

George Thomas Kapelos, OAA FRAIC, is an architect, urban planner and professor in Canada at Toronto Metropolitan University (formerly Ryerson University). He studied architecture and urbanism at Princeton University, and holds a Masters of City Planning from the Harvard Graduate School of Design and a Masters of Architecture from Yale University. 

He is the past president of the Society for the Study of Architecture in Canada, and the past chair of the Toronto Society of Architects. 

He has published on a wide range of topics in architectural history, design pedagogy, urbanism and contemporary environmental design. His architectural research focuses on post-war modernity. His book and exhibition, Competing Modernisms (Dalhousie Architectural Press, 2015), explored the impact of the 1958 Toronto City Hall and Square Competition on national architectural culture. He is a contributing author to the book, Canadian Modern Architecture 1967 to the Present (Princeton Architectural Press 2019), writing a chapter on institutional architecture in Canada over the past five decades.

He is currently examining the role of photography in the preservation of Newfoundland’s vernacular architectural heritage.