George B. Johnston is Professor and Chair of the School of Architecture at Georgia Institute of Technology, where he has been a member of the faculty since 1984. He teaches courses in architectural design and in the history and theory of architectural practice. Based upon his background as both an architect and cultural historian, Johnston is especially open to and able to support research and design projects that involve themes of memory and modernity; institutions of cultural exhibition and display; approaches to American vernacular architecture and cultural landscape; and the critique of the everyday.

Johnston received his Bachelor of Architecture degree from Mississippi State University in 1979, the Master of Architecture degree from Rice University in 1984, and the Doctor of Philosophy degree from Emory University in 2006 in the area of American Cultural History. Johnston is a registered architect, has practiced in firms in Mississippi and Texas, and currently practices as principal in the Atlanta firm of Johnston+Dumais.

Johnston's research interrogates the social, historical, and cultural implications of making architecture in the American context. His book, Drafting Culture: A Social History of Architectural Graphic Standards (MIT Press, 2008), has been lauded for its insights into the ongoing technological transformation of the profession; it received the 2009 Outstanding Book Award from the Southeast Society of Architectural Historians. His ongoing projects address questions of how the profession of architecture, through both traditional and emerging tools of practice, both perpetuates and challenges social and cultural conventions.