In The Public Interest: An Exhibition Archive of Ladislas Segoe

With numerous other groundbreaking achievements including supervising the first federal study of urban America and writing the most influential planning text of the first half of the 20th century, Ladislas Segoe had a long, successful career in city planning spanning over four decades and through interesting times for cities including the Great Depression, WWII, urban renewal of the 1950s and civil unrest in the 1960s. Spending most of his career in Cincinnati, Segoe lectured at the University of Cincinnati from 1938 through 1942. In addition to plans for the city of Cincinnati, Segoe and his associates created comprehensive plans for numerous U.S. cities both local (including Middletown, Dayton and Mason) and across the country (including Detroit, Lexington and Tucson).

This digital collection supports the physical traveling and online exhibition: In the Public Interest. Included are maps, sketches and images that show not only Segoe’s professional work, but that also give insight into the man – his travels, love of fitness and marriage to opera soprano Vilma Czittler. The exhibit is the result of international collaboration that has involved many faculty, experts and staff across the University of Cincinnati, Cornell University and the Technion in Haifa, Israel. Segoe’s complete collection of professional and personal papers are housed in UC Libraries Archives and Rare Books Library and in the Cornell University Archives.

After displaying at UC, the exhibit will travel and be displayed at Cornell University in the fall of 2015 and at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in the Spring of 2016. It was produced with significant support from the Ladislas and Vilma Segoe Family Foundation.