Richard Saul Wurman (born March 26, 1935) is an American

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

and

graphic designer A graphic designer is a professional within the graphic design and graphic arts industry who assembles together images, typography, or motion graphics to create a piece of design. A graphic designer creates the graphics primarily for published, ...

. Wurman has written, designed, and published 90 books and created the TED conferences, the EG Conference, TEDMED, and the WWW Conference.

Education and honors

Wurman received both his B.Arch. and M.Arch. degrees from the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest- ...

, completing his graduate degree with honors in 1959.Richard Saul Wurman
. ''AIGA: the professional association for design''. aiga.org. Retrieved 2016-11-03.

Career

Wurman chaired the IDCA Conference in 1972, the First Federal Design assembly in 1973, and the annual

American Institute of Architects The American Institute of Architects (AIA) is a professional organization for architects in the United States. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the AIA offers education, government advocacy, community redevelopment, and public outreach to s ...

(AIA) conference in 1976. He created and chaired several conferences, including the TED conferences from 1984 through 2003, TEDMED from 1995 through 2010, and the WWW conference. He works with

Esri Esri (; Environmental Systems Research Institute) is an American multinational geographic information system (GIS) software company. It is best known for its ArcGIS products. With a 43% market share, Esri is the world's leading supplier of GIS ...

and

RadicalMedia RadicalMedia is an independent global media and communications company. Founded by Jon Kamen and Frank Scherma, the company develops, creates, and produces film, television, advertising, branded content, music videos, live events, design, digita ...

on comparative cartographic initiatives for mapping urban settings, which is planned to culminate in the creation of a network of live urban observatories around the world. Wurman supports SENS Research Foundation, a nonprofit biotechnology organization that seeks to repair the damages of aging and extend healthy lifespan.

Publications

Wurman has written, designed, and published nearly a hundred books on varying topics, including ''Notebooks and Drawings of Louis I. Kahn'' (1963) and ''What Will Be Has Always Been'' (1986), a collection of words bt

Louis Kahn Louis Isadore Kahn (born Itze-Leib Schmuilowsky; – March 17, 1974) was an Estonian-born American architect based in Philadelphia. After working in various capacities for several firms in Philadelphia, he founded his own atelier in 1935. W ...

. Wurman's map-oriented and infographic guidebooks include the Access travel series (starting with ''Access/LA'' in 1980), several books on healthcare, ''Understanding USA'' (1999). ''Information Anxiety'' (1989) and its second edition (2000). His books about

information architecture Information architecture (IA) is the structural design of shared information environments; the art and science of organizing and labelling websites, intranets, online communities and software to support usability and findability; and an emerging ...

and

information design Information design is the practice of presenting information in a way that fosters an efficient and effective understanding of the information. The term has come to be used for a specific area of graphic design related to displaying information ...

include ''Information Architects'' (1996) and ''UnderstandingUnderstanding'' (2017).

Awards

He was awarded the Arthur Spayed Brooks Gold Medal, several honorary doctorates, a Graham fellowship, a Guggenheim fellowship, numerous federal

National Endowment for the Arts The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal ...

grants, and has served as a distinguished professor at

Northeastern University Northeastern University (NU) is a private research university with its main campus in Boston. Established in 1898, the university offers undergraduate and graduate programs on its main campus as well as satellite campuses in Charlotte, North Ca ...

. He is a recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Award from Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, an Annual Gold Medal from

Trinity College, Dublin , name_Latin = Collegium Sanctae et Individuae Trinitatis Reginae Elizabethae juxta Dublin , motto = ''Perpetuis futuris temporibus duraturam'' (Latin) , motto_lang = la , motto_English = It will last i ...

, a Gold Medal from AIGA, and Boston Science Museum's 50th Annual Bradford Washburn Award in 2014. He is also an

fellow and member of the

Art Directors Club of New York The Art Directors Club of New York is an organization for art directors in New York City. It was founded in 1920, and has grown as an industry group, promoting art directors' work through exhibitions and awards, including the annual DESI award for ...

hall of fame.

Personal life

Wurman lives in Golden Beach, Florida with his wife, novelist Gloria Nagy. They have four children and six grandchildren. He is

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

References

External links

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Richard Saul Wurman
at TED {{DEFAULTSORT:Wurman, Richard Saul 1936 births AIGA medalists American graphic designers 20th-century American Jews American nonprofit businesspeople Businesspeople from Pennsylvania Businesspeople from Rhode Island California State Polytechnic University, Pomona faculty Impresarios Information architects Living people National Design Award winners Artists from Newport, Rhode Island Architects from Philadelphia TED (conference) University of Pennsylvania School of Design alumni 21st-century American Jews