Vincent Scully : architecture urbanism and a life in search of community The renowned architectural historian and critic beloved Yale professor and outspoken public activist Vincent Scully (1920 2017) emerged in the 1950s as a guiding voice in American architecture. This intellectual biography of Scullys life and career traces the formative moments in his thinking charting his relationships with a constellation of architects artists and cultural personalities of the twentieth century. Scully charted an unlikely course from postwar modernism to postmodernism and New Urbanism overturning outdated beliefs and changing the face of the built environment as he went. A teacher for more than 60 years and a figure of immense importance in the field he was central to an expansive network of associations from Frank Lloyd Wright Louis Kahn and Robert Venturi to Robert Stern Harold Bloom and Norman Mailer. Scullys extensive body of work coalesced around the core belief that all architecture shapes society and responds above all else to the human need for community and connection. This timely appraisal provides a platform for reassessing the legacy of these values as well as raising fresh questions about how we write and think about architecture in the twenty first century