M. Christine Boyer
Professor, Urbanism
William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Architecture
Director, Undergraduate Urban Studies Certificate Program
B.A., Goucher College
M.S., University of Pennsylvania
M.C.P., Ph.D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology
M. Christine Boyer, who joined the faculty in 1991, is an urban historian whose interests include the history of the city, city planning, preservation planning, and computer science. Before coming to the School, Boyer was professor and chair of the City and Regional Planning Program at Pratt Institute. She has written extensively about urbanism. Ms. Boyer received an award from the Department of Art and Archaeology Publication Fund, for publication of Le Corbusier: homme de letters (1910-1947) (Princeton Architectural Press, 2010). Her publications include Dreaming the Rational City: The Myth of American City Planning 1890-1945 (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1983), Manhattan Manners: Architecture and Style 1850-1900 (New York: Rizzoli, 1985), The City of Collective Memory (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1994), and CyberCities (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1996). She has also written "La Mission Héliographique: Architectural Photography, Collective Memory and the Patrimony of France, 1851" in Joan M. Swartz and James R. Ryan (eds.) Picturing Place, Photography and the Geographical Imagination (New York: I.B. Taurus, 2003); "Chasing the Arrow of Time: Cities, Cinema and Motion" in Fast Forward, a driving perception (International Design Seminar, TU Delft, 2003); and "Cognitive Landscapes," in Catherine Spellman (ed.) Landscape/Architecture (Barcelona: Actar, 2003). Recently, Ms. Boyer presented the keynote address "Complete Urbanization: the dilemma and desires" at Urban Research and Architecture Beyond Henri Lefebvre, an interdisciplinary conference at the ETH Zurich, in November 2009; and the keynote address "Collective Memory under Siege" at The City Object and Phenomenon of Representation Colloquium at the Université du Québec à Montreal et CCA in Montreal on September 18, 2009. Her recent lectures include "New Orleans and Human Security: Lessons to be Learned" New Orleans under Reconstruction: the Crisis of Planning Conference held at Tulane University, October 23–24, 2009; and "Urban Dilemmas: the Banlieues of Paris and the Reconstruction of New Orleans" at the Dessau Institute of Architecture, Dessau Bauhaus. She participated in "Mobility and the New Media" Center for Architecture Urbanism and Infrastructure, Princeton University; "On Accident" Conference, School of Architecture, Princeton University in December 2009; and "Reconsidering Post-war Architecture and Culture" DSD and Architecture Department, TU Delft in March 2009. She also presented a YouTube Talk entitled "Re-mediation: publics and public spaces" at the Future of Urbanism Conference, held at the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning of the University of Michigan on Mary 20th. The video was posted on http://www.youtube.com/umtaubmancollege. Ms. Boyer was a faculty member for the second "Mapping Athens in the 21st Century: Workshop" held on June 7-18, 2010 in Athens, and sponsored by the Princeton University Program in Hellenic Studies and School of Architecture and the University of Patras Department of Architecture.
