Can the solemnity of architecture be observed through the lightness of a laugh? Alan Dunn: The Cartoonist as Architectural Critic (The MIT Press, 2026) is the first in-depth study of the American artist Alan Dunn (1900–1974), whose incisive cartoons mocked 20th-century architecture and the urban environment, expanding the field of architectural criticism.
Drawing on his pioneering work on the relationship between graphic satire and architecture, Gabriele Neri retraces Dunn's path from painter to celebrated cartoonist, offering an unconventional perspective on urban transformations—and on how they were perceived. He demonstrates the critical potential of caricature for architectural history, and reveals the complex entanglements of architecture with media, publishing, commerce, society, art and politics.
Gabriele Neri, PhD, architect and curator, is Associate Professor of Architectural History at the Politecnico di Torino, Italy. Since 2012, he has also taught at the Academy of Architecture in Mendrisio, Switzerland. He has been awarded an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fellowship at the Huntington Library, San Marino, California, for early 2027 and is an International Correspondent for Architectural Record.
@neri_gabriele