The National Building Arts Center (NBAC) in Sauget, Illinois, has hired Eric Ellingsen as its first full-time Executive Director. Ellingsen succeeds outgoing NBAC Board President Mike Jackson, FAIA, who filled the post on an interim basis.
Ellingsen, a former professor of Landscape Architecture at Washington University, reflected on the challenge of his new role: “It’s an honor stewarding NBAC’s unique mission to preserve industrial heritage, expand interdisciplinary learning, and deepen public engagement with the building arts,” he said. “The experience of seeing both classic architecture and contemporary art installations within NBAC’s industrial spaces has brought me back again and again.”
Ellingsen believes NBAC is poised to make big moves: “Building from a stellar corps of volunteers, staff, directors, and supporters, I see NBAC expanding preservation as a form of public health,” he said. “It is rare to discover a museum at NBAC’s unique intersection of the humanities, architecture, environment, and art—and we have an opportunity here to help meet the eco-urgencies at hand and preserve our shared futures.”
St. Louis-based since 2017, Ellingsen’s local civic involvement includes partnering with the Griot Museum of Black History as co-Principal Investigator for the Black Herstory Initiative, funded by a $100,000 Monument Lab grant from for the design of a citywide wayfinding garden system linking memorial walkways across St. Louis. In 2020, Ellingsen founded CINLAND (Cinema Landscape) LLC, an interspecies sound and vision laboratory in downtown St. Louis. He also operates Species of Space, an art-and-education practice.
Ellingsen’s earlier work spans the globe. In 2009 he co-founded the Institute for Spatial Experimentation (IfREX), a degree-granting public art school at the University of the Arts Berlin. As co-director, Ellingsen oversaw the institute’s multimillion-dollar operations, including public exhibitions, mobile laboratories, research residencies, symposia, publications, and global partnerships.
Ellingsen’s Perceiving Academy in Greece, Iceland, and Cyprus featured site-specific, cross-disciplinary schools supported by art residencies and partnerships with municipalities and art institutions. Their guided walks through watersheds and industrial corridors—led by waste and stormwater engineers, public health experts, and blind-trainers—materialized as site-specific interventions, vinyl records, videos, and large collective maps.
Ellingsen comes to his NBAC post with graduate degrees in Architecture and Landscape Architecture from the University of Pennsylvania, as well as in philosophy from St. John’s College in Annapolis. He previously taught at the Illinois Institute of Technology, Cornell University, the University of Toronto, and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. His grants and fellowships include awards from the TURN Fund for Artistic Cooperation between Germany and African Countries; the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts; the Van Allen Institute; and the Library of Water, as well as from St. Louis’s Gephardt Institute for Civic and Community Engagement, which supported a multi-year research partnership into nuclear maker wayfinding systems with Just Moms STL.
A prolific writer, storyteller, and editor, Ellingsen’s work appears in publications such as Bomb Magazine, World Literature Today; Studies in the History of Gardens & Designed Landscapes; Conjunctions; and Collateral Journal. He has co-edited numerous publications, including MODELS: 306090 (Princeton Architecture Press; 2008). As an artist, Ellingsen has participated in exhibitions at the New National Gallery Berlin, Serpentine Gallery Pavilion (London), Contemporary Art Museum (St Louis), Sullivan Galleries (Chicago), and Palais de Tokyo (Paris).
NBAC’s Board of Directors selected Ellingsen following a competitive nationwide search. “Ellingsen brings to NBAC a unique combination of architectural experience and a decades-long record of creative institution building,” said Board President Eric Sandweiss. “Under his leadership we look to further NBAC’s local and national recognition as a resource for anyone who cares about the past and future of buildings and cities.”
NBAC was founded by architectural recovery expert Larry Giles, who built the nation’s largest collection of architectural artifacts before his untimely death in 2021. Among NBAC’s 2026 highlights will be its participation in St. Louis’s triennial Counterpublic exhibition, final installation of its Little Liberty statue in celebration of the nation’s 250th anniversary, an exhibition highlighting St. Louis’s role in the history of Route 66, and an ongoing collaboration with the NON STNDRD arts initiative. The Center’s regular programming includes lectures and monthly tours; access to its library and archives is available by appointment.
Eric Ellingsen, Executive Director, National Building Arts Center (Photo: Jules Heart Ellingsen)
NBAC hosts regular public tours of its collections, including its vast holdings of architectural and construction documents and literature.
NBAC displays and stores America’s largest collection of architectural artifacts across its 13-acre campus.
Chloë Bass in conversation with Sage Dawson at her NON STNDRD exhibition, a different, better self. (August 25, 2025; photo by E.Ellingsen)
NNN Cook, Nokosee Fields, Gavin Kroeber, Josh Levi, and Aaron Owens present a new sound installation, part of their collaborative project “Lead & Coal: A Sounding,” a sonic exploration of mining landscapes in St. Louis’s extractivist hinterlands. (August 25, 2025; photo E.Ellingsen)