Alec Stewart
Architectural history; suburban history; retail architecture; adaptive reuse; transnational urbanism; ordinary landscapes; material culture.
Alec Stewart is an architectural and urban historian with an interest in the ways that migration, consumer cultures, and grassroots urbanisms shape the built environment. His writing has addressed cultures of public transportation, the revitalization of aging strip malls by immigrant entrepreneurs, and the Asian American–owned swap meet businesses that influenced the emergence of West Coast Hip Hop. He is currently writing his first book, Meet Me at the Swap Meet: Building Urban Citizenship in the Marketplaces of Los Angeles, as well as an article on the transnational logics inscribed in the showrooms and merchandise marts of Los Angeles’s garment district.
Stewart received his PhD in Architecture (History, Theory, and Society) from the University of California, Berkeley, a master’s degree in human geography from George Washington University, and a bachelor’s degree in geography (with a city planning minor) from UC Berkeley. Prior to his doctoral studies, he worked as an urban land use analyst in Washington, DC, and as a city planner in Oakland, California.
A committed educator and mentor, Stewart has offered courses in architectural history and urban studies at UC Berkeley, the University of Pennsylvania, Northeastern University–Oakland (Mills College), California College of the Arts, and the University of San Francisco. He recently served on the Vernacular Architecture Forum’s board of directors as the Papers Committee and Education Committee co-chair.
ARCH 112: The Social Life of Building
ARCH 170A: History of Architecture and Urbanism, Prehistory to 1500
ARCH 270: History of Modern Architecture
Mellon Junior Fellow in Humanities, Urbanism, and Design, University of Pennsylvania, 2021–2022
Mellon Fellow in Urban Landscape Studies, Dumbarton Oaks, 2020–2021
Berkeley Connect Fellowship in Architecture, 2018–2019 & 2022–2023
Chancellor’s Public Fellow, University of California, Berkeley, 2017
"Landscapes of Intimidation and Resilience: Claiming Urban Citizenship in the Marketplaces of Los Angeles." Platform, November 3, 2025.
“‘Meet Me at the Swap Meet’: Asian American Commerce and the Emergence of West Coast Gangsta Rap.” Journal of Urban History, 2025.
"Los Angeles’s Indoor Swap Meet Boom and the Emergence of a Multiethnic Retailscape." Buildings & Landscapes: Journal of the Vernacular Architecture Forum 28, no. 2 (Fall 2021), 25-44.
"Visible But Unseen: The Material Cultures of Los Angeles’s Indoor Swap Meets." Platform, February 15, 2021.
"The World of the Bus: A Lens for ‘Knowing’ Los Angeles.” In Margaret Crawford and Noam Shoked (eds.) No Cruising: Mobile Identities and Urban Life in Los Angeles. Berkeley: Global Urban Humanities Initiative, 2014. 29-42.
"Back to the Future? Transit Technology and Social Stigma in Los Angeles." In Margaret Crawford and Noam Shoked (eds.) No Cruising: Mobile Identities and Urban Life in Los Angeles. Berkeley: Global Urban Humanities Initiative, 2014. 49-60.