Michelangelo Sabatino

About

Michelangelo Sabatino is a publicly engaged architectural historian, curator, and preservationist whose research and writing focuses primarily on modern architecture and the built environment. He is Professor of Architectural History and Heritage at IIT’s College of Architecture where he directs the PhD program and is the inaugural John Vinci Distinguished Research Fellow. Since arriving in Chicago in 2014, Sabatino co-authored Modern in the Middle: Chicago Houses 1929–1975 which recently won the “Modernism in America Award” from Docomomo US. He is currently editing a new book Building, Breaking, Rebuilding. The Illinois Institute of Technology’s Campus and Chicago’s South Side. The book is the basis of short films and a new exhibition. He has recently completed two books related to IIT: The Edith Farnsworth House: Architecture, Preservation, Culture (2024) and Mies in His Own Words: Complete Writings, Speeches, Interviews (2024)

Sabatino’s first book, Pride in Modesty: Modernist Architecture and the Vernacular Tradition in Italy (2011), won multiple awards, including the Chicago-based Society of Architectural Historians’ Alice Davis Hitchcock Award. More recent books include Canada: Modern Architectures in History (with Rhodri Windsor Liscombe, 2016), Avant-Garde in the Cornfields: Architecture, Landscape, and Preservation in New Harmony (with Ben Nicholson, 2019), Making Houston Modern: The Life and Architecture of Howard Barnstone (with Barrie Scardino Bradley and Stephen Fox, 2020), and Carlo Mollino: Architect and Storyteller (with Napoleone Ferrari, 2021).

Sabatino and his partner Serge Ambrose recently restored their late 1930s modern home in the Chicago suburbs. Their forthcoming book is entitled Modern, Again. The Benda House & Garden in Chicagoland (2025)

www.michelangelo-sabatino.com