
- howet@southwestern.edu
- 512.863.1376
- Fine Arts 243
Professor of Art History
Expertise
Architectural History (Greek and Roman, Modern), Art History (Greek and Roman), Architectural Design (introductory, structural and historical design), classical archaeology, international cultural properties management.
Professor Howe has an international reputation as an architectural historian (ancient and modern), architectural design teacher, archaeologist (Greek and Roman), art historian (Greek, Roman, post-Modern) and cultural properties manager of “archaeological parks.” He has been chair of the Art Department (1990-97), and of Art History (2004-) and since 2001 has been coordinator general of the Restoring Ancient Stabiae Foundation near Pompeii, Italy, serving as chief coordinator of archaeology and architectural planning.
As an architectural historian he has written on the “Invention of the Doric Order” of Greek architecture, the creation of the fundamental rules of aesthetics of Greek architecture and hence of Western architecture (Harvard Diss 1985), and is the only person since the sixteenth century to have attempted a full illustration and commentary of Vitruvius, “The Ten Books on Architecture”, (translation, Ingrid Rowland, Cambridge, 1999), the only Roman text on architecture to have survived from antiquity, and generally recognized as the most influential text on architecture in the Western world.
As a design teacher he has introduced at Southwestern the first regular academic program in American architectural education to make historical and classical architecture a regular part of the curriculum (1985, early in the “Post-Modern” movement), and together with ceramicist/designer Prof. Patrick Veerkamp, this program has sent students to graduate programs at Harvard, Yale, UCLA, University of Texas, Austin, Texas A & M, and Rhode Island School of Design.
As an archaeologist he has excavated in Greece, Turkey (Harvard-Cornell’s excavation at Sardis), and co-directed or directed excavations on Roman sites in Britain, Rome and currently at Stabiae near Pompeii.
As a cultural properties manager he authored the 2001 Master Plan for the creation of a large archaeological park at the site of Stabiae, the largest collection of well-preserved enormous seaside Roman villas in the entire Mediterranean, four km from Pompeii. He continues as the coordinator general of that project (general coordinator for design, planning and archaeology, www.stabiae.org), which has begun constructing buildings and fielding archaeological field teams since 2006. In 2010 he coordinated a field season with 110 archaeologists and students from seven teams and five countries, including the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia, while excavating the largest well preserved Roman formal garden ever found. As part of that project he has co-curated exhibits of Roman frescoes from Stabiae which have traveled to the U.S. (nine cities, 2004-08, including the Smithsonian, Washington, D.C., San Diego and Dallas), to the Hermitage, St. Petersburg, Hong Kong and Ravenna, Italy. He is also co-leading the RAS Foundation’s development of the international academic program for the hundred-room Vesuvian Institute in modern Castellammare di Stabia, the first large international humanities research institute in Italy south or Rome.
As a professor, he believes in explaining things until he understand them himself, then listen to the student’s understanding of them, and then go from there. It’s up to students what he does next.
Howe is a Phi Beta Kappa member and was named Marquis’ Who’s Who in America in 2003.
Education
MA, PhD, Harvard University 1985
MArch Program, Harvard University, Graduate School of Design 1973
B.A., Lawrence University 1971
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