Michael Windover

Dr. Michael Windover is an Associate Professor and Head of Art & Architectural History at Carleton University, cross-appointed to the Institute for Comparative Studies in Literature, Art and Culture and the School of Industrial Design. He also serves as adjunct curator of Design at Ingenium: Canada’s Museums of Science and Innovation.

• Education: B.A. & M.A. from University of Western Ontario; Ph.D. from University of British Columbia.

His research bridges modern architecture, design history, and material culture, focusing on the built environment’s role in public cultures, intersections with media, and affective dimensions of everyday design. He has led SSHRC-funded projects like Small Modernisms (with Dustin Valen) to pluralize Canada’s postwar architectural discourse through small-scale sites, and xDX Project to digitally reconstruct the Design Exchange archives.

Key publication themes span Art Deco as a global 'mode of mobility' (from Vancouver skyscrapers to Bombay cinemas), the socio-political consequences of design, and the visual/material culture of radio in Canada, including its architectural impact. He co-edited the Routledge Companion to Art Deco and contributed to works on Casa Loma’s imperialist-nationalism and domestic spatial practices (e.g., pianos in Edwardian living rooms).

Scientific recognition includes the Independent Publisher Book Award (2017) for Seeing, Selling, and Situating Radio in Canada, 1922-1956 and the Martin Eli Weil Prize (2007). He has supervised student research on architectural history, design, and heritage and co-led the Virtual Museum of Architecture in Ottawa, earning a 2019 Teaching Achievement Award.