Vincent Scully: Architecture, Urbanism, and a Life in Search of Community

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The renowned architectural historian and critic, beloved Yale professor, and outspoken public activist Vincent Scully (19202017) emerged in the 1950s as a guiding voice in American architecture. This intellectual biography of Scullys life and career traces the formative moments in his thinking, mapping his relationships with a constellation of architects, artists, and cultural personalities of the past one hundred years. Scully charted an unlikely course from postwar modernism to postmodernism and New Urbanism, overturning outdated beliefs and changing the face of the built environment as he went. A teacher for more than 60 years and a figure of immense importance in the field, he was central to an expansive network of associations, from Frank Lloyd Wright, Louis Kahn, and Robert Venturi to Robert Stern, Harold Bloom, and Norman Mailer. Scullys extensive body of work, with its range spanning centuries and civilizations, coalesced around the core beliefs that architecture shapes and is shaped by society, and that the best architecture responds, above all else, to the human need for community and connection. This timely appraisal provides a platform for reassessing the legacy of these values as well as how we write and think about architecture in the twenty-first century.

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Krista Sykess carefully-researched book on Vincent Scully beautifully captures his unparalleled ability to ignite the imagination of his students with his eloquence, passion for architecture, and concern with social justice that made his lectures electrifying and his writings a call to action. * Esther da Costa Meyer, Professor Emerita of Architectural History, Princeton University, USA and Visiting Professor at Yale University, USA *
The story of an era, Vincent Scullys biography illuminates our understanding of the state of architecture and cities today. Beloved professor and public intellectual, he was dedicated to initiating the public into the sometime arcane world of architecture and architects. He exerted an unprecedented influence as a historian on the turn of events of his own time, with expansive knowledge and empathy for his subjects, and the conviction that past and present are one. * Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, Professor of Architecture, University of Miami, USA *

Author Bio

A. Krista Sykes is an independent architectural writer, editor, and researcher. Her previous publications include Constructing a New Agenda: Architectural Theory 1993-2009 (2012) and The Architecture Reader: Essential Writings from Vitruvius to the Present (2007).