Lewis Mumford Lecture: “The Architecture and Urbanism of Disability,” Featuring David Gissen

Please join us on Thursday, March 28, 2023, at 5:30 pm for our prestigious Lewis Mumford Lecture. This year we have the honor to welcome the renowned architect, historian, and theorist of disability, access, and the politics of architecture, David Gissen, who will be presenting his lecture "The Architecture and Urbanism of Disability."

All lectures are free, open to the public, and held in the Bernard and Anne Spitzer School of Architecture Sciame Auditorium. Live captioning and ASL interpretation will be available upon request. For access requests or questions, please contact [email protected]. 

See https://www.ccny.cuny.edu/return-campus for current requirements for in-person visitors.

David Gissen is an author and designer based in New York City. In addition to The Architecture of Disability, he is the author of the books Subnature (2009) and Manhattan Atmospheres (2013). David has held several distinguished faculty appointments, including Eero Saarinen Visiting Professor of Architecture at Yale University; Dean's Visiting Professor at Columbia University, GSAPP, and University Professor at the Academy of Art in Vienna, Austria. He is currently Professor of Architecture and Urban History at Parsons School of Design/The New School.

"The Architecture and Urbanism of Disability": The pursuit of architectural “access" and urban accessibility have defined, if not over-defined, the politics of disabled people's engagements with the built environment. In this lecture, drawn from Gissen's recent book “The Architecture of Disability,” the author explains the conceptual underpinnings of accessible design and its limitations. As a complement to the pursuit of access, Gissen proposes a more comprehensive way that disabled people can reimagine their cities and the buildings within them. This latter agenda includes disability critiques of property and development, infrastructural management, public space, and commemoration, as well as the possibility of an “anti-eugenic” urbanism.

Suggested Reading: David Gissen, "The Urbanization of Disability," from The Architecture of Disability (Minnesota, 2023).