Taubman College Clutter promoted to associate professor with tenure in architecture
A gifted designer and outstanding studio teacher, McLain Clutter has now emerged as a highly original urban theorist. His scholarship has made significant contributions to the field of urban planning and design as well as interdisciplinary collaborations with media studies. His 2015 book, Imaginary Apparatus: New York City and its Mediated Representation, identifies the moment in the 1970s when planning and urban design in a city still gripped by the urban crisis moved from Robert Moses-style modernist infrastructure planning to a media-based effort to re-conceptualize the city as the preeminent site of gritty authenticity and creativity. McLain’s unique perspective not only broadens the scope of urban planning and design but also points to important interdisciplinary collaborations between the Taubman College and media studies throughout the university. In addition, he effectively brings an intelligent, innovative and strategic approach to his teaching and is an active contributor providing valuable service to the college, university and profession.
McLain joined the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning in 2009. Prior to his appointment at Taubman College, he was an adjunct assistant professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Architecture from 2007-2009. McLain is also the director of Master of None, a design practice he established in 2005 dedicated to rethinking architecture’s disciplinary capacities within the complexities of contemporary urbanism. He received a Bachelor of Architecture from Syracuse University School of Architecture in 2001 and a Master of Environmental Design from Yale School of Architecture in 2007.
