Howard Saalman (1928–1995)

Howard Saalman (February 17, 1928-October 19, 1995) was an architectural historian, specializing in Italian medieval and Renaissance architecture, and Andrew Mellon Professor of Architecture at Carnegie Mellon University. He and his twin brother Peter (d. 2010) were born in Stettin, Germany (now Szczecin, Poland) in 1928 to Walter Guenther Saalman (1897-1963) and Gertrude Robert Saalman (1907-1995). As Jews in Nazi Germany, the Saalmans faced persecution and so immigrated to the United States in 1938.

Saalman earned his Bachelor's degree in 1949 from City College and Master's and Ph. D from New York University. A 1952 seminar with Richard Krautheimer sparked his interest in architect Filippo Brunelleschi. Saalman participated in excavations at Santa Trinità in Florence in 1957-1958, which contributed to his doctoral dissertation, completed in 1960. In 1958, he joined the faculty at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, eventually becoming the Andrew Mellon Professor of Architecture. During his career he made many research trips to Italy, maintaining a close relationship with Villa I Tatti in Florence, and also taught at other institutions all over the world, including University of California, Berkeley; Harvard University; Jerusalem among them. He received a Kress Fellowship in Florence in 1964-1965 and later a Guggenheim Fellowship in the Humanities in 1984. In 1992, he received the Alexander von Humboldt Prize.