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"Hello, my name is John. I'm a recovering architect."

I like all sorts of towns, cities and buildings, but what I design are Classical buildings and Traditional towns and cities. You can see some of them at www.massengale.com.

With Robert A.M. Stern I wrote a history of architecture and urbanism in the Progressive Era, New York 1900, Metropolitan Architecture and Urbanism 1890–1915 (Rizzoli, 1983) as well as an introduction to the history of suburbia before sprawl, The Anglo–American Suburb (St. Martin's Press, 1981). With Victor Dover, I am writing Street Design, The Art & Practice of Making Complete Streets (J. Wiley & Sons, 2013).

I'm a Board Member of the Congress for New Urbanism, the former Chair of CNU New York and a former Director of the Institute of Classical Art & Architecture and Federated Conservationists of Westchester County.

A co-founder of the New Urban and Traditional Architecture Councils.I was also a co-founder of the pro-urb list, a forum on the internet for an advanced discussion of New Urbanism. And in this blog you will find some postings from that list, along with other writings and clippings on architecture, urbanism, Classicism, Tradition, metaphysics and culture.


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« Iconic Architecture Quote of the Day | Main | Words to live by, from Woody Allen »

Sunday, December 04, 2011

Iconic Architecture Quote of the Day

"Maybe that’s what a city is: confrontation and complication. In New York, the name of the game is to have one’s own envelope." - More...

December 4, 2011 in Architecture, Culture, Current Affairs, Education, New York, Urbanism | Permalink

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I wonder if the starchitects making these absurd quotes even understand urbanism? In their minds a city seems to be all about collecting a bunch of iconic objects and arranging them in a sort of sculpture garden (see Dubai or modern Shanghai) for the insignificant little people to confront and cower under. The totalitarian, antihuman, dare I even say "evil!" intellectual notions of the starchitects are really terrifying for most nonarchitects.

Posted by: Marc at Dec 10, 2011 7:36:03 PM

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