[1] Mitchell was born in 1957, at the Norton Air Force Base hospital in San Bernardino, California; to parents Sigmund and Genia Schwarzer, Polish Holocaust survivors.
His family moved to an apartment in Queens, New York; and eventually to a ranch house in Manhasset Hills on Long Island.
In 1986, he began doctoral study in the history, theory and criticism of architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and received his Ph.D. in 1991.
Schwarzer's first academic position was at the University of Illinois at Chicago, where he taught at the art history department from 1991 to 1995.
He has lectured widely in the United States and given talks in Austria, Canada, China, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Great Britain, the Netherlands and Vietnam.