An architect and lecturer in Italian Renaissance Architecture and Italian Urban Planning at Syracuse University of Florence, he has also taught at universities including those of Ferrara, Rice, Berkeley, Zurich and the Getty Centre, inter alia. For more than ten years he was editor of the specialist publication Design Book Review and he is an assiduous contributor to a range of media publications. Among other words, he has recently published the book Architecture and the World: A Cross-Cultural History of the Built Environment, (Oxford University Press, 2010).