Jonathan Massey

Editor, Plots

Architect and historian Jonathan Massey is Dean of Architecture at California College of the Arts. Previously Laura J. and L. Douglas Meredith Professor for Teaching Excellence at Syracuse University, where he chaired the Bachelor of Architecture program and the University Senate, Massey is also a co-founder of the Transdisciplinary Media Studio and the Aggregate Architectural History Collaborative. He has published in many journals and essay collections, including Aggregate’s Governing by Design: Architecture, Economy, and Politics in the 20th Century (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2012).

Massey’s research shows how architecture mediates power by forming civil society, shaping social relationships, and regulating consumption. His book Crystal and Arabesque (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2009) reconstructed the techniques through which American modernist architects engaged new media, audiences and problems of mass society. His essays have analyzed topics ranging from organicism in modern architecture to mortgage finance and sumptuary regulation. Current research examines the ways architecture manages our consumption of resources ranging from energy and water to time and risk.