Andres Duany, the most vocal of New Urbanist, says that the critiques of the "ism" he helped create brand it as a "rustic version of starchitect culture" when it is in actuality an "expanding web of ideas, techniques, projects, and people."
Is New Urbanism defined by front porches and old moulding? Not if Duany can help it. By way of explanation, he tells the story of the formation of new urbanism:
"The New Urbanism coalesced through the 1980s around certain independent initiatives: the Pedestrian Pocket studies of Doug Kelbaugh and Peter Calthorpe, the antimodernist polemics of the Krier brothers and Colin Rowe, the typological rigor of Stefanos Polyzoides, the conservative housing of Urban Design Associates and Dan Solomon, the Americanism of Vincent Scully, and the emergence of Seaside as a physical artifact."
What brought these people and ideas together was a rejection of suburban sprawl. Duany addresses the ways their approach has worked and where New Urbanism failed to coalesce.
FULL STORY: New Urbanism: The case for looking beyond style
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