Nicholas de Monchaux appointed to lead Department of Architecture

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Note: This article is reposted from architecture.mit.edu. Read original post here.

Nicholas de Monchaux has been appointed head of the Department of Architecture at the MIT School of Architecture and Planning, beginning July 2020. He joins the department this week as Professor of Architecture and Urbanism.  

An internationally renowned scholar, educator, designer, architect, urbanist, and public intellectual, de Monchaux will bring extensive experience and a broad perspective to leading the department at a time of rapid technological change, enormous environmental challenges, and equally sweeping social shifts.

He joins the department from UC Berkeley, where he has taught since 2006, most recently as Professor of Architecture and Urban Design, and the Craigslist Distinguished Professor of New Media; from 2016 to 2019 he was Director of the Berkeley Center for New Media. With Kathryn Moll, he is principal of modem, a practice that emphasizes social and ecological concerns and whose  cultural and community-focused work has been exhibited widely.

He holds a BA with Distinction in Architecture from Yale and an MArch from Princeton, and is a Fellow of the American Academy in Rome.

His publications include Local Code: 3,659 Proposals about Data, Design, and the Nature of Cities (Princeton Architectural Press, 2016) and Spacesuit: Fashioning Apollo (MIT Press, 2011).

A bridge builder within the field of architecture, between architecture and other fields, and between people, de Monchaux will also be an affiliated faculty member in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning.  

Professor Andrew Scott will continue in the role of interim department head through the end of the spring semester.