Faculty

Profile

Emily Bills is an educator, curator, and author with research interests in urban history and architectural photography. She teaches architectural history and urban studies at The New School in New York and is directing the development of three STEM sustainability programs at Woodbury University in Burbank, CA. Emily was the editor of the Society of Architectural Historians Archipedia project for California. In her former role as managing director of the Julius Shulman Institute, she collaborated on exhibitions featuring photographers Hélène Binet, Pedro E. Guerrero, Catherine Opie, and Richard Barnes, among others. Her most recent curatorial project was After Modernism: Through the Lens of Wayne Thom at the Pacific Asia Museum in Pasadena, CA (2022-2023).

Degrees Held

B.A. History of Art, University of California, Berkeley

M.A. History of Architecture and Urban Planning, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University

Ph.D. History of Architecture and Urban Planning, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University

Recent Publications

Emily is the coauthor of the award-winning book California Captured: Marvin Rand Mid-Century Modern Architecture (Phaidon, 2018), and the author of Wayne Thom: Photographing the Late Modern (The Monacelli Press, 2020). A forthcoming book Linking Up Los Angeles: How the Telephone Built a City on the history of telecommunications in Southern California is being published by University of Pittsburgh Press. 

Research Interests

European and American urban and architectural history, telecommunications, environmental studies, and photographic representation of space.

Awards And Honors

Emily's work on telephone infrastructure and the development of Los Angeles received a Graham Foundation Carty Manny Award Citation of Special Recognition. She’s also received fellowship and grant support from the Smithsonian, the American Council of Learned Societies, the Huntington Library, the Society of Architectural Historians, and the Southern California Historical Society. Emily also received a Faculty Development Award at The New School for online curriculum development.