Office of Planning: John Michael Vlach - Architectural Historian

John Michael Vlach is a professor of American Studies and of Anthropology at The George Washington University and Director of the university's Folklife Program. For thirty years, he has concentrated his scholarship on aspects of the African Diaspora by conducting field research in Africa (Ghana, Nigeria), the Caribbean (Haiti, Jamaica), and the southern regions of the United States. Author of ten books, his titles in the area of architecture include such seminal texts as "Common Places: Readings in Vernacular Architecture" (with Dell Upton), "Back of the Big House: The Architecture of Plantation Slavery," and "The Planter's Prospect: Privilege and Slavery in Plantation Paintings, and Barns" (winner of the 2003 Kniffen Prize for Best Book on North American Material Culture). Because Vlach has over the last three decades served as guest curator or consultant to numerous museums, his transformative impact on the American public has been quite extensive. He has developed exhibitions for art museums, historical societies, and libraries from coast-to-coast including the National Museum of American History, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Library of Congress, the New Orleans Museum of Art, and the Henry Gallery in Seattle, Washington, the Atlanta History Center and the Milwaukee Art Center. A twenty-five-year resident of Capitol Hill, he serves as an advisor to the Ruth Ann Overbeck Oral History Project and was an advisor to the National Building Museum’s new exhibition “Washington: Symbol and City.”