Maxwell Smith-Holmes
he / him / his
PhD Candidate, History and Theory of Architecture, Princeton SoA
BA, Art History, Reed College; MLA, with distinction, Graduate School of Design
Maxwell Smith-Holmes is a second-year PhD student in history and theory of architecture at Princeton University. He is broadly interested in relationships between the environment, political economy, and knowledge production in colonial and maritime contexts from the 18th through early 20th centuries. Recent projects have explored connections between architecture, landscape, and money; the media of fluid mechanics; the implications of monetary theory for notions of artistic authorship; and the architecture of deep-sea exploration. Born in Chicago and raised in the Pacific Northwest, Maxwell completed a BA in art history at Reed College, then worked on numerous contemporary art exhibitions in New York, before earning a Master’s in Landscape Architecture from Harvard. His essays and criticism have appeared in publications including e-flux architecture, Pairs, and Frieze. He has received grants and awards from the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies, Dumbarton Oaks, Harvard’s Penny White Project Fund, the American Society of Landscape Architects, and Portland Institute for Contemporary Art.
