Alistair John Rowan is an Irish architectural historian, a professor and author of Irish architectural history and current Professor of History of Art at University College, Cork (U.C.C.). Rowan was an architectural writer with Country Life before 1967, when he became lecturer in Fine Art in the University of Edinburgh. Thereafter Rowan became the first professor of the History of Art in University College, Dublin (U.C.D.), and later Principal of Edinburgh College of Art. He was Slade Professor of Fine Art at the University of Oxford for 1988–89.