Spiro Konstantine Kostof (7 May 1936,Istanbul – 7 December 1991,Berkeley) was a Turkish-born American leadingarchitectural historian, and educator. He was a professor at theUniversity of California, Berkeley. His books continue to be widely read and some are routinely used in collegiate courses onarchitectural history.
Born inTurkey, of Greek and Bulgarian ethnic origin, Kostof was educated atIstanbul'sRobert College. He came to the United States in 1957 for graduate work atYale University. Although he intended to major in drama, his interests shifted to architectural history. He received his Ph.D. in 1961, then taught at Yale for four years, before moving to the University of California, Berkeley, to join the faculty of theCollege of Environmental Design. He was to remain at Berkeley for the duration of his career.
Kostof's approach toarchitectural history emphasized urbanism as well as architecture and showed how architectural works are embedded in their physical and social contexts. Commonly accepted today, Kostof's approach was a break with previous directions in architectural history which tended to emphasize the sequence of styles and to study architectural works in relative isolation from their settings. Kostof's textbook,A History of Architecture: Settings and Rituals (1985) embodied these ideas and soon became one of the standard texts in the field.
In 1987, Kostof hosted a five-partPBS series,America by Design.
Kostof's publications were wide-ranging and includedThe Architect: Chapters in the History of the Profession;The City Shaped: Urban Patterns and Meanings Through History;America by Design; andThe City Assembled: Elements of Urban Form through History.
In 1993, following his death, theSociety of Architectural Historians established the "Spiro Kostof Award", to recognize books "in the spirit of Kostof's writings," particularly those that are interdisciplinary and whose content focuses on urban development, the history of urban form, and/or the architecture of the built environment.
