Osman will present themes from his book "Modernism’s Visible Hand". These include the origin of room temperature, the technical foundations for speculative trading in perishable produce, the history of environmental simulation in ecological laboratories, and the regulation of machine shops and architecture offices through new forms of paperwork.

Michael Osman is associate professor of architecture and urban design at University of California, Los Angeles, where he directs the MA and PhD programs in the history and theory of architecture. His book, "Modernism’s Visible Hand: Architecture and Regulation in the United States," was published in 2018 by the University of Minnesota Press. He is a founding member and current chair of Aggregate: The Architectural History Collaborative, which generates, workshops, presents, and publishes innovative scholarship on the subject of architecture from multidisciplinary perspectives.