“Merwood-Salisbury offers a fascinating and well-researched history of Union Square, one of New York City’s central hubs. Integrating architectural and urban history, political and cultural history, theories of space from sociology and other disciplines, and original archival research, Design for the Crowd reveals the ways in which carefully orchestrated urban plans are reconfigured through use. This book will be of unique interest because it historicizes public space via a single, concrete site. It stands as a major contribution to many fields, from architecture and urban planning to political science.”
— Maggie Taft, coeditor of Art in Chicago
“Design for the Crowd takes the reader along an exhilarating procession through US history and urban space. While intently focused on a few acres in Manhattan, Merwood-Salisbury traverses two centuries of urban creativity, paced by a rhythmic interplay of urban planning, design, politics, and the tension between public space and private interests. Historians, planners, and citizens will find the book brimming over with insight and pleasure.”
— Mary P. Ryan, author of Taking the Land to Make the City
“This exceptional book delivers on several fronts: as the spatial history of an iconic New York place, as a contextual history of critical drivers of urban change, and as a narrative interlocked with epochal shifts in American social, political, and economic life. It is a brilliant account of the contested making, shifting meanings, and inherent tensions of the public realm as the epicenter of urban civilization.”
— Robert Freestone, coauthor of Designing the Global City
“In Design for the Crowd, Merwood-Salisbury develops a theory of urban design at the small scale by carefully examining the history of Union Square. Design for the Crowd covers the emergence of this contested terrain through a comprehensive archaeological reading of its changing form. As a leading scholar of the relationship between architectural form and social practice, Merwood-Salisbury shifts from an archaeological to a genealogical approach, measuring the emergence of Union Square from every possible social point of view, revealing the evolution of public space designed by and for the crowd. She begins with the spatial formation of small-scale social encounters and unfolds with profound observations on the mutability of public space to uncover the conflicts and contradictions inherent in our cherished beliefs in freedom of movement, gathering, and speech in the crowded democratic metropolis.”
— Brian McGrath, author of Urban Design Ecologies
“Design for the Crowd arrives at a pivotal moment in the history of the American city—one where debates about the appropriate uses of public space and the exercise of free speech are as contentious as they have been in decades. Elegantly written and sweeping in scope, Merwood-Salisbury’s volume reminds us that public space in the United States has always been a site where multiple agendas were in contest with one another, and where power is always exercised. It is a pointed affirmation of the contribution architectural history can make to illuminating our present moment.”
— Benjamin Flowers, author of Sport and Architecture
"You will no longer think of Union Square the same way after reading Joanna Merwood-Salisbury‘s beautifully and richly detailed history of this very misunderstood public place."
— The Bowery Boys
"One of the great merits of Design for the Crowd is that while its analysis is rooted in exploring the shifting terrain of this dynamic between order and agonism, patriotism and protest, it also is closely attentive to those moments when the distinction between the ideals is not just blurred, but actively remade."
— Donald Mitchell, Gotham Center for New York City History
"Design for the Crowd is an exceptional urban history, a model for scholars of public space."
— Journal of Urban History
"This well-written book focuses on one of New York’s most iconic but most singular open spaces, Union Square. It combines history, architecture, sociology, and theory in creating a useful overview of the square in the context of public speech."
— Journal of Urban Affairs