Irénée Scalbert is a critic, a historian and a lecturer at the School of Architecture at the University of Limerick. He studied at the Architectural Association in the late 1970s. After several years in practice, he returned to the AA and taught there for many years. He was a Visiting Design Critic at the GSD at Harvard University in 2006 and 2007 when he gave a seminar course on the effects of markets on design, and again in 2011 giving a seminar on concepts of nature. Scalbert is a member of the editorial boards of AA Files and Candide. He has contributed numerous essays to architecture magazines on a wide range of topics. He is the author of A Right to Difference: The Architecture of Jean Renaudie (2004). In addition to his writing, he is a regular guest lecturer, most recently at ETH Zurich where he spoke on bricolage. Scalbert lives in London.