The Diagram in the City aims to analyze the visual innovations in urban planning through an art historical lens. The drawings, maps, diagrams, and charts of urban planning are rarely considered yet trace the evolution of urban change and are representations of advances in technology and developments in cultural history. In The Diagram in the City, Shanken plans to put these urban planning images into historical, cultural, political, and technological context; recognizing the importance of planning theorists and designers to the transformation of urban landscapes.

Shanken specializes in the history of architecture with a focus in urban planning, world’s fairs, and the relationship between environment and memory. He received both his M.A. and Ph.D. in Art History at Princeton University. Shanken is the author of two books 194X: Architecture, Planning, and Consumer Culture on the American Homefront (University of Minnesota Press) and Into the Void Pacific: The Architecture of the 1939 San Francisco World’s Fair (under review at the University of California Press).