“Senator of Design” dies

Sad to learn that former New York Senator and U.N. ambassador Daniel Patrick Moynihan passed away today. Considered “one of the nation’s best thinkers among politicians since Lincoln” Moynihan was also a tireless advocate of good urban design.

From Metropolis magazine:

To Moynihan, getting things built (and built well) is all part of the job and the responsible exercise of power in a democratic society. He often quotes Thomas Jefferson’s dictum that “design activity and political thought are indivisible.” As if on cue, he offers this quotation as a response when I ask him to explain how and why architecture has played so prominent a role in his political career. Then, with a professorial gesture–chin up and drawn in, eyeglasses tilting forward on cheeks that can still be called cherubic–he launches into another of his favorite related topics: the history of Washington, D.C., in particular Major Pierre Charles L’Enfant’s ambitious city plan, which famously built symbols of the democratic experiment into the layout of the streets and major buildings. “The idea of Washington,” Moynihan points out, “was an architectural idea, a design idea.” Continue reading…

Read Fast Company article “The Architecture of Hope”

March 26th, 2003