Nicolai Ouroussoff (Russian: Николай Урусов) is a writer and educator who was an architecture critic for the Los Angeles Times and The New York Times.

Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts to a family from Russia, he received a bachelor's degree in Russian from Georgetown University and a master's degree in architecture from the Columbia Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation.

[2] A protégé of the late Herbert Muschamp, Ouroussoff replaced his mentor as the New York Times architecture critic in 2004 after his stint at the Los Angeles Times.

[3] Ouroussoff was a nominated finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in criticism in 2003, 2004, 2006, and 2011.

In 2011, it was announced that he would leave The New York Times to write a book.