The Skyscraper Museum is devoted to the study of high-rise building, past, present, and future. The Museum explores tall buildings as objects of design, products of technology, sites of construction, investments in real estate, and places of work and residence. This site will look better in a browser that supports web standards, but it is accessible to any browser or Internet device.

Alexandros Washburn Book Talk

THE NATURE OF URBAN DESIGN: A NEW YORK PERSPECTIVE ON RESILIENCE

February 18, 2014

In his visually rich book The Nature of Urban Design, Alexandros Washburn argues that the best cities become an ingrained part of their residents’ identities and that the strength of our communities will determine how we respond to crises like Hurricane Sandy, whose floodwaters he watched from his home in Red Hook, Brooklyn. Urban design is the key to this process, but all too often, citizens abandon it to professionals, unable to see a way to express what they love and value in their own neighborhoods. His book strives to empower urbanites and offer a new approach to design that will help cities to prosper in an uncertain future.

Alexandros Washburn is a professor at the Stevens Institute of Technology, former Chief Urban Designer of the New York City Department of City Planning and former Public Works Advisor and chief architect for Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan. He lives in Red Hook, Brooklyn.

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The exhibitions and programs of The Skyscraper Museum are supported by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and the New York State Council on the Arts, a State Agency.