Robert McCarter is a practicing architect and has been Ruth and Norman Moore Professor of Architecture at Washington University in St. Louis since 2007.

He has written for numerous international publications, and his books include: Louis I Kahn (2022/2005); Place Matters: The Architecture of W.G. Clark; Grafton Architects (2018); Marcel Breuer (2016); Steven Holl (2015); Alvar Aalto (2014); Carlo Scarpa (2013); and Understanding Architecture, coauthored with Juhani Pallasmaa (2012); and, all published by Phaidon Press.

He has also published The Work of MacKayLyons Sweetapple Architects: Economy as Ethic (2017); The Space Within: Interior Experience as the Origin of Architecture (2016); Herman Hertzberger (2015); and Aldo van Eyck (2015), among other books.