Michael Webb

5 PM Friday, February 15, 2019

Michael Webb studied architecture at London’s Regent Street Polytechnic School of Architecture (now the University of Westminster) between 1953 and 1972. In 1960, one of his projects found its way to the Visionary Architecture exhibition organized by New York’s Museum of Modern Art.

A year later, Peter Cook invited Webb to join Archigram. Rebelling against what it saw as the failure of the architectural establishment in Britain, the group aimed to create projects that reflected the technological and social changes that the country was undergoing. Although unbuilt, Archigram’s projects offered a new approach to urbanism and infrastructure: 1984’s Plug-In City, for instance, proposed an evolving, movable megastructure that incorporated housing, transportation, and other essential services. In 1965, Webb moved to the United States. Since then, his work has been featured in a number of publications and exhibitions.

Webb has taught at numerous institutions, including Columbia University, The Cooper Union, the New Jersey Institute of Technology, Pratt Institute, Rhode Island School of Design, and Virginia Tech.

He was a 2010–11 fellow at the Canadian Centre for Architecture and has received grants from the New York State Council on the Arts and the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts.