Profile
Reto Geiser is a designer and scholar of modern architecture who focuses on the intersections between architecture, pedagogy, and media. His writings have been published internationally in anthologies and in such journals as Abitare, Future Anterior, Harvard Design Magazine, Werk Bauen + Wohnen, and Hunch. Geiser is the author of Giedion and America: Repositioning the History of Modern Architecture, the editor and co-translator of Sigfried Giedion: Befreites Wohnen/Liberated Dwelling. He coauthored Projectile and Reading Revolutionaries; he is the editor of award-winning Archetypes, House is a House is a House is a House is a House: Architecture and Collaborations of Johnston Marklee, and Explorations in Architecture. His most recent book, Futures of the Architectural Exhibition, investigates the ways in which contemporary curators have approached questions of display in exhibitions and in their stewardship of diverse institutional platforms for the representation of architecture and design.
His current research includes “Ruins in Reverse,” a project on photography initiated as part of an A.W. Mellon research project at the Canadian Centre for Architecture; a critical monograph on the Miami-based firm Arquitectonica’s residential projects in Houston in the 1980s; and the exhibition and publication project A Closer Look, reflecting the role of photography in Sigfried Giedion’s work. Geiser is the founding director of the Rice Architecture Summer Immersion program for Houston-area high school students from underserved communities. In connection with this initiative, he is also a co-PI on a study to assess the impact of architectural pedagogy on spatial reasoning skills.
A founding partner in the award-winning design practice MG&Co., he is developing spatial strategies in a range of scales—from the book to the house—and exploring the boundaries of design and research with a focus on the intersections and overlaps between architecture, installation, and typography. Recent projects include environmental graphics for the Menil Collection, the Houston Endowment, and the Margo Leavin Graduate Art Studios at UCLA. Geiser has curated and designed the exhibition Explorations: Teaching, Design, Research, Switzerland’s official contribution to the 11th Venice Architecture Biennale, and the installation Rooms for Books at the 2017 Chicago Architecture Biennial.
Geiser is the recipient of the George R. Brown Award for Superior Teaching (2021) and the Charles Duncan Award for Outstanding Academic Achievement (2020). In 2020 he was elected a member of the Scientia Institute at Rice University. His work has been recognized by the Swiss Federal Office of Culture, the Stiftung Buchkunst, the German Architecture Museum, and the American Institute of Graphic Arts, among others.