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Anthony Raynsford
PhD - University of Chicago / M.Arch. - UCLA

San José State University
Associate Professor Department of Art and Art History

Anthony Raynsford is an architectural and urban design historian, whose interdisciplinary research interests bridge across cultural, intellectual and art history, particularly of the 20th century. His teaching seeks to develop a critical understanding of the interlocking social and aesthetic issues faced by architects and designers, both currently and historically. Professor Raynsford's current book project is entitled,Cities for an 'Open Society': The Aesthetic Politics of American Urban Design, 1940-1975 . Related to this project are also a number of papers and essays, including a recent article on the politics of the British Townscape movement.

Research

Book Project

Cities for an 'Open Society': The Aesthetic Politics of American Urban Design, 1940-1975 This research project explores a fundamental shift within Anglo-American urban design practices, from a relatively closed model of a hierarchically ordered, 'organic' city to a relatively indeterminate model of an open-ended, pluralistically constructed city.Explaining this shift entails posing two interrelated questions: How have Anglo-American urban planners and architects generally conceived the shapes of cities for complex, pluralistic societies in the postwar period? How were their psychological, aesthetic and political assumptions about urban citizenship shaped by the context of the Cold War? In order to frame these questions, I invoke the phrase 'open society' in its historical signification as that which opposed totalitarianism, in particular, and political utopianism more generally. This work builds on the conclusions found in my recent publications.

Current Work

Dissertation

Teaching

Current and Recent Courses at SJSU

Courses Previously Taught

Architecture Resources

Bay Area Archives

Bay Area Architectural Organizations

National and International Architectural Resources

Anthony Raynsford
E-mail: Anthony.Raynsford@sjsu.edu
Last Modified: 1/11/24