Robert Fishman was Conference Vice-Chair and provided an Opening Address at the 5th Holcim Forum dedicated to “Infrastructure Space” held April 7-9, 2016 in Detroit, USA.

He is an internationally recognized expert in the areas of urban history, and urban policy and planning; and works in history of sustainability. He began his academic career as an assistant professor of history in the Faculty of Arts & Sciences at Rutgers University in 1974 and was appointed Professor of History in 1988. In 2000, he joined the faculty of Taubman College and was appointed as the Emil Lorch Professor of Architecture & Urban Planning (2006-09).

Robert Fishman is the author of Bourgeois Utopias: The Rise and Fall of Suburbia (Basic Books: 1987) and Urban Utopias in the Twentieth Century: Ebenezer Howard, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Le Corbusier (Basic Books, 1977).

He holds a PhD and AM in history from Harvard University and an AB in history from Stanford University.

He was recipient of Laurence Gerckens Prize (2009) for lifetime achievement of the Society for City and Regional Planning History and has held visiting professorships at the University of Paris, Nanterre; the University of Pennsylvania; and Columbia University.