In Memoriam Michael Fazio (1943–2020)
- In Memoriam Michael Fazio (1943–2020)
Michael W. Fazio, long-time SESAH member, former SESAH president, architectural historian and Professor Emeritus at Mississippi State University, passed away on February 18, 2020 after a seven-month long fight against acute leukemia.
Michael spent his early life in Birmingham, Alabama, receiving his Bachelor of Architecture at Auburn University and a Masters of Architecture from the Ohio State University.
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Michael Fazio in the Bob and Kathy Luke Library at Mississippi State University. Photo courtesy of Amber Lombardo of the Mississippi of American Institute of Architects.
He was a founding faculty member of the Mississippi State University School of Architecture where he taught from 1974 until his retirement in 2005. Despite being a tenured, associate professor, Michael returned to school because he wanted to become a better researcher, earning a Ph.D. from Cornell University's program in the history of architecture and urban development in 1987. Michael will be sorely missed in all the venues of his life: at Mississippi State, in SESAH, among architectural historians, and, of course, in his family.
At Mississippi State, Director Emeritus Michael Berk said, "with Michael's passing, the school lost its longtime founding faculty member and, undeniably, its guiding soul. Michael had an influence or impact on nearly every practicing architect in the state of Mississippi – where he is highly regarded, revered and respected. Upon retirement, Michael truly embraced the emeritus status, working daily in his official 'office/desk' planted firmly under the skylight in the Bob and Kathy Luke Library where he continued to be productive by modeling the highest level of academic rigor and scholarship for our students and faculty. He was considered by many in the school a trusted advisor, colleague and dear friend."
Michael was nearly a founding member of SESAH, joining in 1985. He served twice as SESAH president, from 1989 to 1990 and again from 2009 to 2011. He hosted at least one SESAH annual meeting, served in more organizational capacities than can be remembered, and constantly encouraged the group's younger scholars. Michael saw SESAH's goal as fostering more and better scholarship on southern architecture and by southern architectural historians.
Michael was a prolific scholar whose articles have appeared in the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Arris, and the Journal of Architectural Education. He wrote or co-wrote four books. With fellow-SESAH members Marian Moffett and Lawrence Wodehouse, he wrote two editions of the popular survey Buildings Across Time: An Introduction to World Architecture (2005 and 2019). His magnum opus, The [End Page 2] Domestic Architecture of Benjamin Henry Latrobe, co-authored with Patrick Snadon, won the prestigious Alice Davis Hitchcock Book Award from the Society of Architectural Historians in 2008. With his Landscape of Transformation: Architecture and Birmingham, Alabama (2010), he turned his scholarly attention back to his hometown, exploring the meanings of architecture in this industrial southern city. Most recently he completed with Jennifer Baughn the Buildings of Mississippi, part of the SAH Buildings of the United States series, which is scheduled for publication in Fall 2020. He was researching and writing virtually to the end of his life.
SESAH will miss Michael's scholarship, leadership, and experience. [End Page 3]
Michael Berk, AIA, Emeritus Director and Emeritus Professor of Architecture at Mississippi State University, Jennifer Baughn, Chief Architectural Historian at Mississippi Department of Archives and History and current SESAH president, and Mark Reinberger, Professor at the University of Georgia and current Arris editor, contributed to this memorial.
