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National Endowment for the Arts Announces Jeff B. Speck as Director of DesignJune 4, 2003
Washington, D.C. - The National Endowment for the Arts announced today that Jeff B. Speck, a Miami-based city planner and writer, has been appointed its Director of Design. In that position, Speck will supervise the panel selection and grant making process in design, oversee the Mayors' Institute on City Design and Your Town programs and provide professional leadership to the field. He will assume his new responsibilities in mid-August. "We are excited to have someone of Jeff Speck's caliber to direct the Arts Endowment's design initiatives," said Dana Gioia, National Endowment for the Arts Chairman. "His innovative planning projects illustrate not only aesthetic and artistic qualities but also show how good design can improve the quality of life for all Americans." 
Speck, 39, is currently director of town planning at the Miami firm of Duany Plater-Zyberk and Co., Architects and Town Planners (DPZ). DPZ is a leader in the national movement called the New Urbanism, which seeks to end suburban sprawl and urban disinvestment. The firm first received international recognition as the designers of Seaside, Florida, and has since completed designs for over 250 new towns and community revitalization projects, many of which were managed by Speck. DPZ has received numerous awards, including two Florida Governor's Urban Design Awards for Excellence. The new town of Seaside was described by Time magazine as "the most astounding design achievement of its era." A native of Belmont, Massachusetts, Speck joined Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk as a project manager in 1993. He received a master's in architecture with distinction from the Harvard Graduate School of Design, where he studied under Raphael Moneo, Fred Koetter and Jorge Silvetti and served as a head teaching fellow in fine arts at Harvard College. He graduated magna cum laude from Williams College and also holds a master's in art history, earned as a Syracuse University fellow in Florence, Italy. Prior to his graduate study, Speck worked as a financial analyst in the housing group at the investment bank of First Boston. Projects that he directed or managed for DPZ include new neighborhoods in New Jersey, Wisconsin, Colorado, Toronto, Germany and Belgium. With Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, Speck is the co-author of the book Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream, published March, 2000 by North Point / Farrar Straus Giroux. A high-resolution electronic image of Jeff Speck is available on request. For more information, contact the NEA Office of Communications at 202-682-5570.
National Endowment for the Arts · an independent federal agency |
