John Massengale

John Massengale, AIA, CNU, is an international thought leader on the connections between urban design, architecture, walkability, and placemaking. As principal at Massengale & Co. and the author of three books, he has more than 25 years’ experience designing projects in Europe and across America and shares with his audiences innovative and proven strategies for success. His planning work spans a range of situations from suburban retrofits and designing new towns to urban infill and urban regeneration. At every scale–from arranging rooms to arranging buildings to organizing street plans–Massengale emphasizes context and the importance of making places where people want to be.

Massengale is co-author with Victor Dover, FAICP, of Street Design: The Secret to Great Cities and Towns (Wiley, 2014) with foreword by HRH The Prince of Wales. Through more than 150 examples and hundreds of photos of streets old and new, Street Design guides readers through what works and what doesn’t, and reveals the secrets to designing beautiful streets that encourage people to get out of their cars and walk.

Massengale has been sharing his insight and research on cities and urban design for many years. He was co-author with Robert A.M. Stern and Gregory Gilmartin of New York 1900: Metropolitan Architecture and Urbanism 1890-1915 (Rizzoli, 1983), the first architecture history book nominated for a National Book Award, and The Anglo-American Suburb (St. Martin’s Press, 1981). A Board member of the Congress for the New Urbanism, Massengale was previously the founding Chair of CNU New York. He also served as a Director of the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art and as a Board member of the Federated Conservationists of Westchester County.

Before founding Massengale & Co., Massengale served as the Town Architect of Seaside, Florida, which Time magazine called “the most astounding design achievement of its era.” As an architect, Massengale is known for creative and beautiful work in regional and Classical traditions from New York to New Mexico. An authority on the architecture and urbanism of the Eastern United States, particularly as found New York and New England, he has worked in affordable housing, speculative housing, and historic preservation, and received awards from magazines such as Metropolitan Home and Progressive Architecture as well as from several chapters of the American Institute of Architects. [Published in the New York Times and the Daily News, written for the Wall Street Journal and local papers.]

Massengale has taught architecture and urban design studios at the University of Miami School of Architecture, the University of Notre Dame School of Architecture, and the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art. He holds an A.B. from Harvard College and a Master’s degree in architecture from the University of Pennsylvania.