William Curtis was educated at the Courtauld Institute of Art in London and Harvard University. Curtis has taught History of Architecture and Theories of Design at universities across England, the United States, Australia and Asia.
He has won worldwide acclaim for his architectural writing. His books include the bestselling Modern Architecture Since 1900 - published by Phaidon Press in 1982 - as well as Le Corbusier/English Architecture (1975) and Le Corbusier at Work (1978).
Curtis received the Founder's Award of the Society of Architectural Historians (USA) in 1982. In 1985 he was the recipient of both the critics' award of the Comite Internationale des Critiques d'Architecture and the CICA award for best article of architectural criticism world-wide in the period 1982-5. His monograph Balkrishna Doshi: an Architecture for India won him a silver medal at the world Biennale of Architecture in 1989.