IGOR SIDDIQUI is an architect, design educator, and writer. He is best known as an academic whose work simultaneously engages design practice, scholarship, and pedagogy. Siddiqui currently holds the appointment of Associate Professor of Architecture and Interior Design at The University of Texas at Austin and is the Gene Edward Mikeska Endowed Chair of Interior Design.
Over the last decade, his work has explored a broad range of issues, including craft, materiality, mass-customization, participatory processes, and social programs such as housing, with the overarching aim of linking design innovation to public engagement. Siddiqui is also known for promoting interiors as a body of interdisciplinary knowledge central to the understanding of contemporary life.
EARLY LIFE AND EDUCATION
Siddiqui was born in Rijeka, Croatia in 1974. His background is European and South Asian. He moved to the US while in high school, and later received architecture degrees from Tulane University (Bachelor of Architecture, 1998) and Yale University (Master of Architecture, 2003). While at Yale, Siddiqui received the Samuel J. Fogelson Memorial Award of Design Excellence and was also nominated for the H.I. Feldman Prize. His graduate thesis was on the relationship between architecture and video art.
PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE
Siddiqui started his own practice, ISSSStudio in 2006 in Brooklyn. The studio name comes from a combination of his initials along with his friend Susan Sloan’s, who was the firm’s other original co-founder. Prior to independent practice, Siddiqui worked at 1100 Architect, where he was an architectural designer and project manager, and at Kohn Pedersen Fox. In 2005, he was awarded the Stewardson Keefe LeBrun Travel Grant by the New York chapter of the American Institute of Architects. After over a decade of public use, the name of ISSSStudio was eventually retired.
He is a registered architect in New York and Texas.
ACADEMIC CAREER
Siddiqui was recruited to the faculty of the School of Architecture at The University of Texas at Austin in 2009 with the appointment of Assistant Professor. In 2015, he was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure. Siddiqui currently serves as Program Director for Interior Design and has also led the Architecture in Europe program. He teaches a variety of design studios, visual communication, and theory courses at a range of levels across the curriculum.
Siddiqui regularly gives guest lectures, workshops, and presentations about his work as a designer, educator, and scholar. He has been a visiting artist at the Cranbrook Academy of Art, the Confluence Institute in Paris, and at Boisbuchet. Prior to his appointment at UT, Siddiqui taught at the University of Pennsylvania, California College of the Arts, and Parsons the New School for Design.
CREATIVE TRAJECTORY
Siddiqui’s creative scholarship, research, and practice are focused on the relationship between design innovation and public engagement. Through a range of public formats – from permanents structures and installations to exhibitions and participatory programs – his work seeks to bring experimental design to diverse audiences. This kind of work frequently reveals to the public certain aspects of the constructed environment that are ordinarily hidden, easily overlooked, or otherwise inaccessible. This includes the interior nature of spaces that we inhabit, the materiality of our surroundings, or the underlying technologies that shape our world. His work has been exhibited at a range of venues including at the Tallinn Architecture Biennale, the Contemporary Austin, SITE Santa Fe, SxSW Eco, Fusebox Festival, Metro Show Art Fair, the Ogden Museum of Art, and Flux Factory, and has appeared in various professional and popular publications such as Dwell, Interior Design, the Architect’s Newspaper, Artforum, Texas Architect, and Smart Magazine. Over the past decade, his scholarly writing has focused on means, methods, and motives that define contemporary design. His current book project is titled Oblique / Interior: on Claude Parent's Practicables.
Along with Andy Campbell, Juliette Cezzar, and Brendan Griffiths, Siddiqui was a member of the 45 Library Collective responsible for organizing the online exhibition 45library.com. He is also a part of the occasionally active Studio KINC with UT Austin colleagues Kory Bieg, Nerea Feliz, and Clay Odom.