Fitch, James Marston (1909–2000)

US architectural preservationist and historian. He taught at Columbia University (1954–77), where he founded the nation's first historic preservation programme. His works include American Building: The Environmental Forces that Shape It (1947) and Architecture and the Aesthetics of Plenty (1961).

He was born in Washington, DC, and trained as an architect at Tulane, before moving to New York City, where, working as an architectural editor (1936–53), he embraced modernism but developed an interest in the social concerns of architecture. His early support of ‘progressive’ urban renewal gave way in the late 1940s to a commitment to historical preservation. After his retirement from Columbia he became director of historic preservation at the architectural firm of Beyer Blinder Belle, New York (1979).