Nicolai Ouroussoff (Russian: Николай Владимирович Урусов; born October 3, 1962) was the architecture critic for The New York Times from 2004 until June 2011.
Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, 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. He is currently Adjunct Associate Professor of Architecture at Columbia Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation.
The protégé of the late Herbert Muschamp, Ouroussoff replaced his mentor as New York Times architecture critic in 2004. He wrote the newspaper's obituary for Muschamp in 2007.
Previously, Ouroussoff was the architecture critic for the Los Angeles Times. He was a nominated finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in criticism in 2003, 2004, 2006, and 2011. He is married to the U.K.-born painter Cecily Brown.
In 2011, it was announced that he would leave the New York Times to write a book. He was succeeded as architectural critic by Michael Kimmelman.