Werner Hegemann and Elbert Peets classic study of urban design, The American Vitruvius: An Architect’s Handbook of Civic Art, was published in 1922, at a moment when American cities had reached an apex of maturity in their development. The book cataloged together historical European and world urban design projects with iconic American projects for cohesive groupings of buildings, many of which were part of the City Beautiful movement.
On its recent 100th anniversary, 2008 YUDW Postdoc Jinxi Chen, now an associate professor at Tsinghua University in Beijing, published the first Chinese translation of the book. The book includes a translation of YUDW founding director Alan Plattus’s introduction to the 1988 reprint of the book, along with a new introduction by YUDW director Andrei Harwell.
Plattus’s popular Yale course Civic Art: An Introduction to Urban Design, taught with Harwell from 2006-2022, and more recently with YUDW assistant director Matthew Rosen, owes its title to the important book. The course has introduced generations of Yale students to the history and theory of urban design.
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