He studies questions of the politics of cultural representation in architecture, the larger ideological content of nineteenth-century architectural theory, and the changing role of both architecture as a profession and architecture as a cultural product in nineteenth-century European society. 

He has written extensively on the history and problematics of exhibiting architecture, and the history of museological practices in relationship to architecture. 

A specialist in the history of modern architecture, he has curated exhibitions at MoMA, the Canadian Centre for Architecture, the Musée d’Orsay, and Mies in Berlin (2001), Bauhaus 1919–1933: Workshops for Modernity, Rising Currents: Projects for New York’s Waterfront, Latin America in Construction: Architecture 1955- 1980 and Frank Lloyd Wright at 150: Unpacking the Archive (2017). A former President of the Society of Architectural Historians, Bergdoll is the President of the Board of the Center for Architecture, New York.