Poster, Corky

Part 1 was recorded on March 14th, 2025 in Tucson, AZ and covers the following themes: 

b. 1947 

  • Childhood in in New York City. 

  • Attending Harvard for undergraduate and graduate degrees. Trends in architecture and visual/environmental studies in the late 1960s. 

  • Working as a carpenter in Martha’s Vineyard during 1970/71. 

  • Interest in affordable housing and adobe construction. 

  • The aesthetic legacies of Bauhaus and Le Corbusier. 

  • Move to Tucson in 1973. 

  • Working with the Tucson Design Center. A Model Cities project to build bathrooms in houses with pit toilets during 1974-5. 

  • Working with Judith Chafee from 1973-4. 

  • Tucson Design Center projects through 1976. Social network, fellow urban design activists. 

  • Becoming part of the Tucson community. 

  • Character of the Miles Neighborhood in the 1970s.  

Part 2 was recorded on March 24th, 2025 in Tucson, AZ and covers the following themes: 

  • Tucson’s urban landscape in 1973, auto-dominance, areas for improvement. 

  • Earning a Wheelright Fellowship to study housing in Latin America during 1977-8. 

  • Resuming work at the Tucson Design Center in 1978. Status of federal funding for affordable housing. TDC litigation against the City of Tucson over blight designations and Joel Valdez over conflicts of interest. 

  • Decline in federal funds for affordable housing projects in the Regan presidency and decline of the Tucson Design Center. 

  • Teaching architecture at the University of Arizona and developing a private architecture practice.  

  • Survey of Tucson architecture firms in the 1970s. 

  • Advocating for better urban design within Tucson’s core. 

  • The evolving relationship between rental value and location. 

  • Housing affordability across Poster’s career. 

  • Downtown Tucson in the 1980s. 

  • Buying Judith Chafee’s office in Barrio Viejo. 

  • The Urban Design Commission’s study of Tucson in 1984-5. 

Part 3 was recorded on June 20th, 2025 in Tucson, AZ and covers the following themes: 

  • Urban planning projects in Tucson and Pima County during the 1980s. Bike and pedestrian infrastructure, urban drainage, road beautification. Pima County’s GIS systems. 

  • An Urban Land Institute report about Tucson in the 1980s.  

  • Poster’s work at the Drachman Institute at the University of Arizona until 2009. Projects, university politics, and impressions of Roy Drachman. 

  • Development of the El Paso & Southwestern Greenway. 

  • Redesigns of 4th and 6th Avenues in South Tucson. 

  • South Park redevelopment, the Quincy Douglas Center, retention basin, and Barrio Santa Rosa redevelopment plan. 

  • The tenure process at the University of Arizona and university culture. 

  • Relationship between the University community and the broader Tucson community. 

  • Sites of progressive architectural and urban design thinking during the 1980s and 1990s. Disagreements with Jody Gibbs of the Tucson Design Center regarding affordable housing. 

Part 4 was recorded on July 11th, 2025 in Tucson, AZ and covers the following themes: 

  • Urban design activists who began work during the late 1970s and 1980s. Affordable housing advocacy and progressive politics. 

  • The decline of Housing and Urban Development funding for low income projects and rise in tax credits for low income construction. 

  • Advocating for change from outside versus inside of institutions. 

  • Networks of activism. Tucson Unified School District’s sale of the Dunbar-Spring School and its redesign by a coalition of nonprofits. 

  • Historic preservation and the architectural aftermath of Tucson’s Urban Renewal project in the 1960s and 1970s. The City’s first historic preservation zones. Kelly Rollings’ preservation efforts. 

  • Tensions within the historic preservation community. Midcentury Modern structures. The tension between preservation and affordable redevelopment. 

  • The relationship between capitalism and gentrification. 

  • The redevelopment of downtown Tucson and appeal of urban living in the late 2000s to 2010s. Rise in construction costs and rents. 

  • Decline in large architectural firms in Tucson from the 1970s to 2020s. 

  • Architecturally notable buildings in Tucson. The work of small Tucson architectural firms. 

  • Missed architectural and design opportunities. 

  • The restoration of Old Main at the University of Arizona. 

Aengus Anderson