Cohen was born in Paris and trained as an architect at the École Spéciale d'Architecture and at the Unité Pédagogique n° 6 in Paris, graduating in 1973 and then receiving his post-graduate diploma Architecte DPLG in 1979. He received his Ph.D. in Art History from the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in 1985. After directing the Architectural Research Program at the French Ministry of Housing, from 1983 to 1996 he held a Research Professorship at the School of Architecture Paris-Villemin, and from 1996 to 2004, a Chair in Town-Planning History at the Institut Français d'Urbanisme, University of Paris. In 1994 he was named the Sheldon H. Solow Chair for the History of Architecture at New York University's Institute of Fine Arts, where he currently teaches, and he has lectured widely in North American universities. In 1998 he was appointed to develop the Cité de l'Architecture et du Patrimoine in Paris which opened in 2007. He was director of the project until 2003. In the course of his career he has curated many major exhibitions including "The Lost Vanguard", at the Museum of Modern Art ; "Scenes of the World to Come", "Architecture in Uniform" and "Building a New New World: Amerikanizm in Russian Architecture" at the Canadian Centre for Architecture ; "Paris-Moscou" and the centennial show "L'aventure Le Corbusier", both at the Centre Georges Pompidou; "Le Corbusier, tainy tvorchestva," at the Pushkin Museum in Moscow ; "Interférences – architecture, Allemagne, France" at the Musée d’art moderne et contemporain de Strasbourg, and the Deutsches Architekturmuseum, Frankfurt ; and "Le Corbusier: An Atlas of Modern Landscapes" at New York's Museum of Modern Art in 2013. In 2013 he was also appointed Commissioner of the French Pavilion for the 14th International Architecture Exhibition. Cohen was made a Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2001. He is the recipient of the 2003 Medal for Architectural Analysis from the Académie d'Architecture and the 2010 Schelling Architecture Theory Prize in architectural theory. Two of his books won the Grand Prix du livre from the Académie d'Architecture—Scènes de la vie future: l'architecture européenne et la tentation de l'Amérique 1893-1960 and Architecture en uniforme: projeter et construire pour la seconde guerre mondiale. Most recently he was awarded a Graham Foundation Individual Grant in 2012 for the publication by Reaktion Books of his forthcoming history of FrenchArchitectural Modernism, and is currently a Fellow of the John S. Guggenheim Foundation for 2013. In 2013 the Collège de France in Paris appointed him for three years to hold a chair devoted to Architecture and Urban Form. The Canadian Centre for Architecture holds the archives of Jean-Louis Cohen.
Selected exhibitions
', Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, 31 May to 5 November 1979
', Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, 8 October 1987 to 3 January 1988
', Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal, 14 June 1995 to 14 September 1995
Interférences/Interferenzen: Architecture Allemagne-France, 1800-2000, Musée d’art moderne et contemporain de Strasbourg, 30 March to 21 July 2013 and Deutsches Architekturmuseum, Frankfurt, 3 October 2013 to 12 January 2014
', Museum of Modern Art, New York, 15 June to 23 September 2013
', Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal, 12 November 2019 to 26 July 2020
Selected publications
Le Corbusier and the Mystique of the USSR, Theories and Projects for Moscow, 1928-1936. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992.
Des fortifs au périf, Paris: les seuils de la ville. Paris: Picard, 1992.
' Montreal: Canadian Centre for Architecture; Paris: Flammarion, 1995.
L'architecture d'André Lurçat ; l'autocritique d'un moderne. Liege: Pierre Mardaga, 1995.
Les Années 30, l'architecture et les arts de l'espace entre industrie et nostalgie. Paris: Éditions du Patrimoine, 1997.
Encyclopédie Perret. Paris: Éditions du Patrimoine/Institut français d'architecture, 2002.
Casablanca, Colonial Myths and Architectural Ventures. New York: The Monacelli Press, 2002.
Alger, paysage urbain et architectures 1800-2000. Paris: Éditions de l'Imprimeur, 2003.
Le Corbusier, la planète comme chantier. Paris: Textuel, 2005.
