Lewis Mumford (1895-1990) was a native New Yorker internationally recognized as one of the most distinguished urbanists of the twentieth century. The architectural critic for the New Yorker for over thirty years, Mumford was also the author of more than twenty books and one thousand articles and reviews, on subjects ranging from art and literature to the histories of technology and urbanism. His book, The City in History, won the 1962 National Book Award for nonfiction. Before his death in 1990 at age ninety-four, Mumford received numerous accolades, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1964 and the National Medal of the Arts in 1986.
