Alison B. Snyder

Snyder’s pedagogical interests are concerned with the overlaps and intersections between architecture, artistic practice, place, and the interior. Her scholarship draws on archaeological and anthropological methods to reveal how places, buildings, and interiors transform over time. She conducts urban and rural field-based research, mostly in Turkey and New York, to analyze and interpret monumental and mundane cultural settings. Recognizing the necessity for investigating as both an insider and outsider, she asks socio-spatial questions that characterize and challenge these experiences.

Snyder’s work has been presented and published in the United States, Europe, and Asia. She is recipient of a Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts grant for her work on light and the Ottoman Mosque, and additional academic grants for work on over-looked/under-realized sites such as: globalizing domestic spaces inside Anatolian villages; cross-comparisons within Istanbul’s and NYC’s continuously transforming urbanism, viewed through inter-related street/alley/passage spaces, and a reinterpretation of remnant buildings and burial sites, all as forms of urban interiors.

Before joining Pratt full-time, Snyder taught in the University of Oregon’s Department of Architecture and directed the Interior Architecture Program. She subsequently chaired the Interior Design Department at Pratt. She has also held visiting positions at Orta Dogu Teknik Universitesi/METU in Ankara, Turkey, and Denmark Institute for Study Abroad, and had part-time positions at New York Institute of Technology, Pratt Institute, and Jefferson University (Philadelphia). Snyder is a licensed architect and has professional expertise in lighting and furniture design, the adaptive reuse of residential, religious and commercial spaces.

B.A. Architecture, Washington University

M.Arch., GSAPP Columbia University