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Alex MacLean Named 2002 Resident Fellow

In May 2002, the Kansas City Design Center awarded its first resident design fellowship to photographer Alex S. MacLean, principal and founder of Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Landslides Aerial Photography.

MacLean successfully concluded his aerial photography in November 2002, and created approximately three thousand images of the region's built and natural environments. Landslides and KCDC staff and affiliated faculty are currently working to catalogue the images for Cityscapes, a publicly-accessible visual database of resources documenting Kansas City's built environment.

In November 2002, MacLean made the first public presentation of his Kansas City work in a joint lecture with noted urban ecologist Anne Whiston Spirn, Professor of Landscape Architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, during the concluding lecture in our annual series, Sustaining a Sense of Region. From September 2003 through January 2004, the KCDC presented toward the horizon, a public exhibition of MacLean’s Kansas City photographs.

Read the press release announcing MacLean's fellowship.

View the photographs included in toward the horizon.

Alex MacLean was featured on KCUR-FM's "Up to Date", Nov. 4, 2002

FLYING SOLO, a film by French videographer Odile Fillion, documents MacLean as he begins his work in Kansas City. The film was shown daily as part of toward the horizon.

Project Goals

• To provide a compelling visual perspective on issues of urban design, natural ecology, landscape, sustainability, and growth management;
• To create a photographic catalog documenting the aesthetic and urban design qualities of the regional built environment, particularly in historic and newly-developed areas;
• To develop a visual basis for scholars, practitioners, civic and political leaders, and the public at large, to define and articulate desirable qualities of physical planning, urban design, and environmental management.