Yale School of Architecture alumnus and faculty member Alexander Garvin was named to oversee the redevelopment of Lower Manhattan.
“Alex Garvin has had a profound effect on New York City,” said Robert A. M. Stern, Dean of the Yale School of Architecture. “I can think of no one who knows more about New York and how it works.”
Garvin is the third Yale School of Architecture professor to become associated with the World Trade Center site. Visiting professors Frank Gehry and Zaha Hadid, who are teaching master studios at the School this term, chose the site for their students’ projects.
The world-renowned Gehry has charged his students to design a one-room monument for the WTC site. Hadid, an internationally acclaimed London-based designer and theorist, has asked her parallel class to consider a new kind of office complex to replace the Twin Towers.
A native New Yorker, Garvin is used to shuttling between Manhattan, where he has served on the City Planning Commission for many years, and New Haven, Connecticut, where he teaches urban planning and development at the undergraduate and graduate levels.
His course “Study of the City,” which uses such techniques as role-playing and field visits to Manhattan, is a popular mainstay of the Yale College curriculum.
Garvin’s non-academic accomplishments range from private practice to public service. From 1970 to 1980, he served in city government as Deputy Commissioner of Housing and Director of Comprehensive Planning. He is a fellow of the Urban Land Institute and a member of the National Advisory Council to the Trust for Public Land.
In the private sector, Garvin runs his own consultancy practice for urban planning and real estate development, and he writes prolifically and lectures widely. He is the author or principal author of several books, including “The American City: What Works, What Doesn’t,” winner of the 1996 American Institute of Architects book award in urbanism; “Urban Parks and Open Space”; and the recently released “Parks, Recreation, and Open Space: A 21st Century Agenda.”
In addition to his position on the City Planning Commission, Garvin has been active in the campaign to lure the Summer Olympics games to New York in his role as the planning director of the NYC2012 Committee.
Despite his proven mastery of urban planning, Garvin admits that his new position as vice president for planning, design and development of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation (LMDC) presents daunting challenges. “I have been planning most of my adult life,” he says. “But this is a unique project, unlike anything I have ever done before.”
Although the exact site of the Twin Towers is the most important part of the project, Garvin says, he will be overseeing the redevelopment and revitalization of all of Lower Manhattan. Everything from rewiring buildings to street system changes and subway lines have to be accounted for. Garvin will bring together agencies, organizations, commissions and developers, along with residents, property owners and area retailers.
Yale’s influence on the project is further reflected in the fact that Garvin will be working in concert with two other graduates of the Yale School of Architecture, Andrew Winters and Chris Glaisek, and he does expect to take a serious look at the proposals of Gehry’s and Hadid’s students.
“I’ll take everybody’s interests into consideration,” he says. Reflecting on the spiritual dimension of his project, especially for those who suffered losses, Garvin pauses.
“There’s no way we can grasp the meaning for those affected.”
