Andy Shanken is an architectural and urban historian with an interest in how cultural constructions of memory shape the built environment (and vice versa). He also works on the unbuilt and paper architecture, themed landscapes, heritage and conservation planning; traditions of representation in twentieth-century architecture and planning; keywords in architecture and American culture; and consumer culture and architecture. He is interested in historiography, particularly of architectural history, and the intersection of popular culture and architecture. Since this is too much for one person, he is looking to clone himself.
Professor Shanken’s first book, 194X, examines how American architects and planners on the American homefront anticipated the world after the war. Broadly speaking, it is a cultural history of American architecture, planning, and consumer culture in this formative and strained moment for the architectural profession. His second book, Into the Void Pacific, looks at the architecture of the neglected 1939 San Francisco world’s fair. His third book, The Everyday Life of Memorials (Zone Books, 2022) examines the quotidian experience of memorials in cities. He co-edited Breaking the Bronze Ceiling (Fordham, 2023), a collection of essays about monuments to women. He teaches courses on most of these topics in architecture and American Studies, where he has a joint appointment.
He is currently Faculty Curator of the Environmental Design Archives.
Architecture and consumer culture, memory and the built environment, historiography, paper architecture and the unbuilt, fairs and expositions, themed landscapes, history of heritage and conservation planning, and architectural keywords.
