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20 Years of Shaping Civic Design: The Mayors' Institute on City Design Celebrates with an Anniversary Lecture
DECEMBER 2006 WASHINGTON, DC Twenty years ago, Charleston Mayor Joseph P. Riley, Jr. awoke one morning and realized he was the chief urban designer of his city, or so the story goes. He promptly wrote a letter to Jaquelin Robertson, then Dean of the School of Architecture at the University of Virginia, proposing the Mayors' Institute on City Design - a program that would bring mayors together with design and development experts to discuss the most challenging urban design projects facing their cities. Robertson brought the idea to Adele Chatfield-Taylor, then Director of Design at the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Mayors' Institute was born.
Twenty years later, in essentially the same format proposed by Mayor Riley, the Mayors' Institute is going strong - hosting seven to eight sessions and reaching at least fifty cities each year. In fact, the Mayors' Institute has graduated over 700 mayors and over 500 design and development professionals in its twenty year history.
To celebrate this momentous occasion, the MICD hosted a public lecture and panel discussion at the National Building Museum on December 13th. Moderated by Paul Goldberger, architecture critic for The New Yorker magazine, the discussion centered around the impact of politics on city design and the future of urban development in America's cities. The Mayors present were: United States Conference of Mayors President Douglas Palmer of Trenton, New Jersey; Mayor Joseph P. Riley, Jr., of Charleston, South Carolina; Mayor David Cicilline of Providence, Rhode Island; and Mayor T.M. Franklin Cownie of Des Moines, Iowa.
Jeff Speck, Director of Design for the National Endowment for the Arts, opened the event with a brief history of the Mayors' Institute, highlighting its prominence within the NEA. The audience of over 250 people was also greeted by Chase Rynd, Executive Director of the National Building Museum, Dana Gioia, Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, Ronald Bogle, President of the American Architectural Foundation, and Tom Cochran, Executive Director of the United States Conference of Mayors.
Conference President Trenton Mayor Douglas Palmer drew vigorous applause from the audience of over 250 people assembled by explaining that his city was attempting to address the surfeit of surface parking lots in their downtown, the relationship of state buildings to the city fabric, and the proliferation of projects that tear down valued buildings in the city historic fabric.
Charleston Mayor Joseph P. Riley, a co-founder of the MICD, explained to the crowd, "the design of your city is one of the most important things a mayor can do because the public space in the city is the one place that belongs to everybody."
Des Moines Mayor Frank Cownie explained the significance of city design in affecting a city's sustainability. He explained that Des Moines is looking at several measures to encourage greener urban development.
Providence Mayor David Cicilline told the audience, "The Mayors' Institute was the most valuable three days of my first term in office." He explained that after attending the MICD session, he returned to Providence and hired a city architect who works in the Mayor's Office, and helps the Mayor and his staff evaluate development proposals.
Hear audio from the panel discussion at Architecture Radio.
Download a transcript of the discussion: PDF (13 pps. | 0.7 mb)
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Paul Goldberger, Architecture Critic, The New Yorker
Paul Goldberger is the Architecture Critic for The New Yorker, where since 1997 he has written the magazine's celebrated "Sky Line" column. He also holds the Joseph Urban Chair in Design and Architecture at The New School in New York City. He began his career at The New York Times, where in 1984 his architecture criticism was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Distinguished Criticism, the highest award in journalism.
He is the author of several books, most recently his chronicle of the process of rebuilding Ground Zero, entitled UP FROM ZERO: Politics, Architecture, and the Rebuilding of New York, which was published by Random House in the fall of 2004, and brought out in a new, updated paperback edition in 2005. Paul Goldberger has also written "The City Observed: New York," "The Skyscraper," "On the Rise: Architecture and Design in a Post-Modern Age," "Above New York," and "The World Trade Center Remembered."
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Mayor Joseph P. Riley, Jr., City of Charleston
Mayor Joseph P. Riley, Jr. was a founder of the Mayors' Institute for City Design (MICD). First elected Mayor of Charleston, South Carolina in December 1975, Mayor Riley is serving an unprecedented eighth term. Under his leadership, Charleston has experienced a remarkable revitalization of its historic downtown business district, built the beautiful Waterfront Park, developed nationally-acclaimed affordable housing, and experienced significant growth in Charleston's size and population. Washington Post columnist David S. Broder said, "...what has been achieved here under his leadership is extraordinary," adding "...it is mainly the way that Charleston treats the social problems that all old cities share that has made Riley's long reign so remarkable." Mayor Riley received the 1994 Thomas Jefferson Award from the American Institute of Architects for "his exceptional leadership and 'Jeffersonian' vision in redefining the promise and, ultimately the future, of our nation and its cities." In July 2000, he was honored as the first recipient of the Urban Land Institute's J. C. Nichols Prize for Visionary Urban Development.
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Mayor Douglas Palmer, City of Trenton
Douglas H. Palmer took the helm of leadership in New Jersey's capital city on July 1, 1990. He became Trenton's first African-American mayor and has been re-elected four times since to lead a sustained revitalization effort. Since being elected, Mayor Palmer has made tremendous strides in rebuilding his hometown. The transformation of downtown Trenton owes to the Mayor's perseverance, as the City has seen its abandoned properties reduced from more than 8,000 to fewer than 2,500 during his tenure. In 2006, nearly a half-billion dollars worth of downtown development projects are under way or planned. In addition to the numerous economic development project that have helped lower the city's unemployment rate, under the Mayor's leadership Trenton has become the nation's leader in cleaning up brownfields and converting environmentally challenged areas for redevelopment.
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Mayor David Cicilline, City of Providence
Mayor David N. Cicilline was born in the South Side of Providence. After serving as a public and criminal defender, he began his political life serving four terms as state representative from District 4, on the city's East Side. In 2002, when the City of Providence was buckling under a $59 million deficit, David Cicilline announced his candidacy for Mayor. David Cicilline won the general election with 84% of the vote. Since taking office, Mayor Cicilline has been widely recognized for transforming Providence. His city is blossoming, in spite of all the damage done to it in the past, remarked conservative Providence Journal columnist, Edward Achorn.
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Mayor Frank Cownie, City of Des Moines
In 2004, Frank Cownie was elected as Mayor of the City of Des Moines. When he took office, the Des Moines downtown area was in the middle of a renaissance with $1.5 billion worth of new and renovation development underway. The cityscape is being redesigned and civic leaders are charged with improving infrastructure and public safety to meet the growing demands. The downtown business area is the largest employment zone in the state of Iowa with nearly 70,000 workers and is home to the Iowa state capitol complex. As mayor, Frank Cownie says he wants to take advantage of every strategic opportunity to continue to build momentum and keep the city's status as the destination in the Midwest for building businesses and raising families.
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