Sharon Johnston

Design Critic in Architecture

Photo by Eric Staudenmaier

On leave for Fall 2023 and Spring 2024

Sharon Johnston, Design Critic in Architecture, F.A.I.A., is a partner of Johnston Marklee & Associates, based in Los Angeles. Since its establishment in 1998, Johnston Marklee has been recognized nationally and internationally with over 30 major awards. A book on the work of the firm, entitled HOUSE IS A HOUSE IS A HOUSE IS A HOUSE IS A HOUSE, was published by Birkhauser in 2016. This followed a monograph on the firm’s work, published in 2014 by 2G.

Sharon has also taught at Princeton University, the University of California, Los Angeles, and has held the Cullinan Chair at Rice University and the Frank Gehry International Chair at the University of Toronto.

Projects undertaken by Johnston Marklee are diverse in scale and type, spanning seven countries throughout North and South America, Europe, and Asia. Recent projects include the Menil Drawing Institute, on the campus of the Menil Collection, scheduled to open in 2018; a renovation of the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, completed in September 2017; and the new UCLA Graduate Art Studios campus in Culver City, California.

The firm’s work is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Menil Collection, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Carnegie Museum of Art, and the Architecture Museum of TU Munich.

Together with partner Mark Lee, Sharon was the Artistic Director of the 2017 Chicago Architecture Biennial.

Courses

Publications

  • America

    By Mark Lee, Jerold S. Kayden, Jennifer Bonner, K. Michael Hays, Edward Eigen, Mack Scogin, Max Kuo, Sharon Johnston, Maurice Cox, Rahul Mehrotra, Kersten Geers, David Van Severen, Sean Canty, Michael Van Valkenburgh and Victor Jones

    February 2021

  • The Architectural Double in the Museum City

    Sharon Johnston and Mark Lee, Instructors

    July 2016

Projects