Ralph Ghoche
Recent Faculty.
Ralph Ghoche.
He holds a professional degree in Architecture (B. Arch, 1998) and a post-professional degree (M. Arch II) in history and theory of architecture from McGill University. In 2006, Ghoche obtained his M.Phil at Columbia University where he is currently concluding a dissertation centered on the history of ornament and organicism in nineteenth-century France. The dissertation has received support from several sources, including the Chester Dale Fellowship from the National Gallery of Art, Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts in Washington D.C. and The Getty Research Institute.
Elsewhere, Ghoche has written on ornament in relation to theories of aesthetics from Immanuel Kant to Jules Bourgoin, and on the politicization of the decorative arts in Émile Zola’s utopian novel Travail. Ghoche’s recent publications include “Nature by Design,” published in a special issue of Tarp: Architectural Manual titled “Not-Nature,” and “The Science of the Beautiful: S.C. Constant-Dufeux and the Parabola as Constructive and Symbolic Form,” published in Nuts and Bolts of Construction History: Culture, Technology and Society (Picard, 2012). He is currently preparing a comprehensive article on ornament in the nineteenth century to be published in the Blackwell compendium to nineteenth-century architecture in the spring of 2013.
Prior to his recent appointment as a Lecturer at Rensselaer, Ghoche taught architectural history and theory at Pratt Institute from 2007 to 2012. Ghoche has also taught at Columbia University and at Vassar College.