John May
Associate Professor of Architecture
Architecture Thesis Director
John May is founding partner, with Zeina Koreitem, of MILLIØNS, a Los Angeles-based design practice. Their recent work includes completed and ongoing projects in California, New York, Boston, Germany and Beirut. Recently selected as the winner of an international competition to reimagine the west wing of I.M. Pei’s Everson Musum, in Syracuse, NY, MILLIØNS’ experimental work has been featured in solo and group exhibitions at Friedman Benda Gallery, the Storefront for Art and Architecture, The Architecture + Design Museum of Los Angeles, and Jai & Jai Los Angeles, among others. Their essays have appeared in Harvard Design Magazine, e-flux, Flaunt magazine, I.D., a+t, and in a catalog of their work on experimental collective living, New Massings for New Masses: Collectivity After Orthography (MIT, 2015).
Situated at the intersection of philosophy, technology, and the politics of environmentalism, May’s writings aim at a continual articulation of the conditions surrounding the contemporary design fields. His most recent book, Signal. Image. Architecture (Columbia, 2019) contemplates the psychosocial effects of transmissible electronic images, and their consequences for architecture and urbanism. Design Technics: Archaeologies of Architectural Practice (Minnesota, 2019; co-edited with Zeynep Çelik Alexander) explores the philosophical, historical, and political dimensions of contemporary design technologies. May’s essays and interviews have appeared in Log, Perspecta, Praxis, MIT Thresholds, Project, Quaderns, New Geographies, and Actar’s Verb: Crisis, among many others.
May previously taught at MIT, UCLA, SCI-Arc, and the University of Toronto. In 2012 he was named National Endowment for the Humanities Visiting Professor in Architecture at Rice University. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy and Visual Art from the College of William and Mary, a Master of Architecture (AP) with Distinction from Harvard GSD, and a doctorate in Geography and Environmental Studies from UCLA.
Courses
Publications
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Multihyphenate
Edited by John May, Zeina Koreitem and Sean Canty
September 2023
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Platform 10: Live Feed
By Jon Lott and John May
November 2017
News
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A Moveable Feast: Milliøns designs a living archive of modern ceramics for the Everson Museum
February 19, 2020
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Further Reading: John May’s Signal. Image. Architecture
December 16, 2019
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At Therme Forum, John May considers the balance of localism and globalism as designers envision the city of the future
August 8, 2019
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Zeina Koreitem, John May named “emerging designers to watch” by The Architect’s Newspaper
November 8, 2018
Exhibitions
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Multihyphenation
Sean Canty, Zeina Koreitem and John May, Curators
AUG 30 – OCT 11, 2023
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Live Feed: Platform 10
John May and Jon Lott, Curators
MAR 26 – MAY 11, 2018
Events
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MULTIHYPHENATE: Sean Canty, Zeina Koreitem, and John May introduce Harvard Design Magazine #51
Edited by John May, Sean Canty and Zeina Koreitem
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Metahaven, “Inhabitant”
John May, Host
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Virtual Public Lecture: John May, “Rules for the Electronic Zoo”
John May, Contributor
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Newish Media: A Conversation with Lucia Allais and John May
John May, Panelist