Rate My Professor James Curry

Dr James Curry, PhD, serves as a Lecturer in Architecture at Adelaide University within the School of Architecture and Built Environment, College of Creative Arts, Design and Humanities. His academic career includes prior teaching roles at the University of South Australia and the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. Professionally, he has worked in the architecture practices of Wiel Arets in Maastricht, The Netherlands, and Ian Moore in Sydney, Australia. Appointed at Adelaide University since 2013, Dr Curry teaches advanced courses such as ARCH 4051 Design Studio Research and ARCH 2056 Theory of the Modern Interior. He is eligible to supervise Masters and PhD students, currently co-supervising theses on designing culturally appropriate, affordable housing for the urban poor in Dhaka, Bangladesh, and redefining housing affordability and sustainability in Saudi Arabia through flexible architecture.

Dr Curry's research centers on architectural history and theory, with a focus on the archive—drawings, construction documents, photographs, and theoretical manuscripts—as a medium for comprehending the formation, transmission, and reception of modernist architecture. His projects explore how photographs and construction documents shaped the reception of modernist architecture in post-war Australia, particularly the relationship between American architectural culture and its Australian reception through specific media. Another key strand involves close readings of Rudolph Schindler's theoretical writings on materials, texture, the interior, furniture, and the room, positioning him in relation to the ornament debates of Semper, Loos, and Wagner. Notable publications include “Rudolph Schindler’s Church School Lecture on Decoration (1916): A Preliminary Reading” (2017, with Stanislaus Fung), “Rudolph Schindler’s Church School Lecture on Form Creation (1916): A Preliminary Reading” (2018, with Stanislaus Fung), “Bruce Rickard in the worlds of photographs: preliminary notes” (2023, with Stanislaus Fung), and “Lust for Lifestyle: A Reconfiguring of the Everyday” (2021). Dr Curry curated “Lust for Lifestyle: Modern Adelaide Homes 1950-65” at the State Library of South Australia and “Modern Beach Homes,” and advised the Museum of Modern Art in New York on Schindler furniture.