Kubo Awarded Houston Endowment Directed Program Grant

Professor proposes research highlighting concepts of time and lateness within the history of architecture


Michael Kubo
Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture and Design professor Michael Kubo was selected this year to receive a grant from the Houston Endowment. He plans to engage in theoretical and historical research on concepts of time and lateness within the history of architecture and urbanism in order to promote new conceptual frameworks and methodologies for contemporary processes of adaptive reuse, maintenance, preservation, and sustainable design in the built environment.

The Houston Endowment is committed to advancing the equity of opportunity for Houstonians and advancing research within the city of Houston.

"I look forward to seeing how this project can lead to new history, theory, and criticism (HTC) courses as generators for broader research initiatives at the Hines College," said Kubo. "The Directed Program Grant will contribute to developing our HTC program, and particularly to creating new opportunities for students and faculty to work together in engaging key historical and theoretical questions regarding the design of the built environment."

Kubo wants to investigate the importance of periodizing concepts in architecture and culture – including late style, late capitalism, late modernism, belatedness, nostalgia, hauntology, and retro-futures.

"This project forms part of a broader collaborative initiative around questions of time and temporality in architecture," shared Kubo. "Houston Endowment's support allows us the opportunity to develop different aspects of this project within the College, particularly surrounding Houston's own history and futures".
 
Kubo is an author and assistant professor of architectural history, theory, and criticism at the Hines College, currently serving as the program coordinator for HTC at the graduate and undergraduate levels. This year he and associate professor Matt  Johnson also received the 2021 Course Development Prize in Architecture, Climate Change, and Society from the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) and the Temple Hoyne Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture at Columbia University.