Isabelle Gournay, Ph.D.
Associate Professor

Office: 1224    |    Phone: 301-405-6304    |    Email

Ph.D., 1989 History of Art Department, Yale University (Thesis advisor: Vincent J. Scully Jr.); Architecte DPLG (M.Arch.), 1980 Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, UPA 4, Paris; Certificate, Museum Training Program, 1980 Ecole du Louvre, Paris, 1980; Former Student, Art History Program, 1979 Ecole du Louvre, Paris, 1979.

A native of France and a resident of Historic Greenbelt, Isabelle Gournay received a professional degree in architecture from the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts and a doctorate in art history from Yale University. She co-edited Paris on the Potomac.  The French Influence on the Architecture and Art of Washington, D.C. Ohio University Press, 2007 and authored The New Trocadéro (Pierre Mardaga - Institut Français d'Architecture, 1985) and the A.I.A. Guide to the Architecture of Atlanta, (University of Georgia Press, 1992), as well as numerous articles, book chapters and encyclopedia entries published in the U.S., France, Great Britain, Canada, Italy and Holland.  On behalf of the Canadian Center for Architecture, she guest curated the exhibition Ernest Cormier and the Université de Montréal (1990) and Montréal Metropolis 1880-1930 (with France Vanlaethem, 1998) and edited their companion publications.  Many of her publications explore connections between urbanism, architecture and housing in France and the United States, such as the impact of the U.S. home builder Levitt around Paris.  A former president of the Washington, D.C. chapter of the Society of Architectural Historians, Prof. Gournay also served as chapter liaison for this national organization and was ex-officio member of its Board of Directors.  She co-curated the exhibition Affordable Housing: Designing an American Asset on behalf of the National Building Museum (2004) and is currently the lead researcher (with Professor Mary Corbin Sies, American Studies) for a groundbreaking study of the Modern Movement in Maryland sponsored by the Maryland Historical Trust.  With the help of graduate students in Historic Preservation, Profs. Sies and Gournay have authored many National Register nominations, some on landmarks of modernism threatened with demolition.  Prof. Gournay is an affiliate of the French and American Studies Departments at the University of Maryland.

A Treasury of World's Fair Art & Architecture. A Digital Archive 1851-1986, University of Maryland Libraries, www.lib.umd.edu/digital/worldsfairs/ features student papers for Professor Gournay's seminar HNR 219F World's Fairs: Social and Architectural History, Spring 2001 and 2003.