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Talent Density

Places, institutions, movements, studios, scenes, laboratories, and networks in which an exceptional concentration of influential people worked in proximity and produced outsized cultural, scientific, technological, or architectural impact.

  • Architectural Association●

    1847–present

    Alvin Boyarsky, Cedric Price, Peter Cook, Bernard Tschumi, Zaha Hadid, Rem Koolhaas

  • Cavendish Laboratory●

    1874–present

    J.J. Thomson, Ernest Rutherford, James Chadwick, Francis Crick, Max Perutz, John Kendrew

  • Tin Pan Alley●

    1890s–1950s

    Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, Cole Porter, Jerome Kern, Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart

  • Fin-de-Siècle Vienna / Vienna Modern●

    1890s–1930s

    Gustav Klimt, Adolf Loos, Arnold Schoenberg, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Karl Kraus, Otto Wagner

  • Bloomsbury Group●

    1905–1940s

    Virginia Woolf, E.M. Forster, John Maynard Keynes, Lytton Strachey, Vanessa Bell, Duncan Grant

  • Paris Left Bank / Modernist Expatriate Scene●

    1910s–1930s

    Gertrude Stein, Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce, Ezra Pound, Pablo Picasso, Sylvia Beach

  • UFA / Weimar Berlin●

    1918–1933

    Fritz Lang, F.W. Murnau, G.W. Pabst, Billy Wilder, Marlene Dietrich, Emil Jannings

  • Harlem Renaissance●

    1918–mid-1930s

    Aaron Douglas, Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes, Duke Ellington, Countee Cullen, Claude McKay

  • Bauhaus●

    1919–1933

    Walter Gropius, Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky, László Moholy-Nagy, Herbert Bayer, Josef Albers, Anni Albers

  • Algonquin Round Table

    1919–1929

    Dorothy Parker, Robert Benchley, George S. Kaufman, Harold Ross, Edna Ferber, Alexander Woollcott

  • Bell Labs●

    1925–1980s

    Claude Shannon, John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, William Shockley, Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Richard Hamming

  • CIAM●

    1928–1959

    Le Corbusier, Sigfried Giedion, José Luis Sert, Walter Gropius, Alison Smithson, Peter Smithson

  • Brill Building●

    1930s–1960s

    Carole King, Neil Diamond, Lieber and Stoller, Doc Pomus, Mort Shuman, Barry Mann, Cynthia Weil

  • Black Mountain College

    1933–1957

    Josef Albers, Robert Creeley, Merce Cunningham, John Cage, Robert Rauschenberg, Cy Twombly, Charles Olson

  • Harvard Graduate School of Design under Walter Gropius●

    1937–1952

    Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer, Richard Neutra, I.M. Pei, Philip Johnson, Gio Ponti

  • Bletchley Park / Hut 8●

    1939–1945

    Alan Turing, Hugh Alexander, Joan Clarke, Peter Hilton, Stuart Milner-Barry

  • Cinecittà / Postwar Italian Cinema●

    1940s–1960s

    Federico Fellini, Luchino Visconti, Vittorio De Sica, Michelangelo Antonioni, Marcello Mastroianni, Anna Magnani

  • Abstract Expressionism / Cedar Tavern Circle●

    1940s–1960s

    Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko, Franz Kline, Barnett Newman, Robert Motherwell, Lee Krasner

  • The Manhattan Project●

    1942–1945

    J. Robert Oppenheimer, Enrico Fermi, Richard Feynman, Edward Teller, Niels Bohr, Leo Szilard, John von Neumann

  • MIT Building 20

    1943–1998

    Jerome Wiesner, Amar Bose, Noam Chomsky, Harold Edgerton

  • Case Study House Program●

    1945–1966

    Charles and Ray Eames, Pierre Koenig, Richard Neutra, Craig Ellwood, Eero Saarinen, Raphael Soriano

  • Los Alamos after the war

    1945–1960s

    Stanislaw Ulam, John von Neumann, Nicholas Metropolis, Edward Teller, Enrico Fermi

  • Sun Records●

    1950–1969

    Sam Phillips, Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Roy Orbison

  • French New Wave / Cahiers du Cinéma Circle●

    1950s–1960s

    Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut, Éric Rohmer, Claude Chabrol, Jacques Rivette, Agnès Varda

  • Greenwich Village Folk Scene●

    1950s–1960s

    Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Dave Van Ronk, Phil Ochs, Odetta, Peter, Paul and Mary

  • Nashville Songwriting / Music Row●

    1950s–present

    Chet Atkins, Kris Kristofferson, Dolly Parton, Willie Nelson, Matraca Berg, Vince Gill

  • Bauhaus revival / Postwar German design education

    1950s–1970s

    Max Bill, Otl Aicher, Tomás Maldonado, Inge Scholl, Gui Bonsiepe

  • Yale School of Architecture●

    1950s–present

    Paul Rudolph, Robert A.M. Stern, Vincent Scully, Charles Moore, Denise Scott Brown, Robert Venturi

  • Ulm School of Design (HfG Ulm)●

    1953–1968

    Max Bill, Tomás Maldonado, Otl Aicher, Gui Bonsiepe, Inge Aicher-Scholl

  • Team 10

    1953–1981

    Alison Smithson, Peter Smithson, Aldo van Eyck, Giancarlo De Carlo, Georges Candilis, Shadrach Woods

  • Eliot Noyes and IBM

    1956–1976

    Eliot Noyes, Paul Rand, Charles Eames, George Nelson, Eero Saarinen

  • Fairchild Semiconductor / Silicon Valley Founding Circle●

    1957–1975

    Robert Noyce, Gordon Moore, Jean Hoerni, Jay Last, Julius Blank, Victor Grinich, Eugene Kleiner

  • Stax Records●

    1957–1975

    Jim Stewart, Estelle Axton, Otis Redding, Isaac Hayes, Booker T. & the M.G.'s, Sam & Dave, Carla Thomas

  • Motown●

    1959–1972

    Berry Gordy, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson, Diana Ross, The Four Tops, Holland-Dozier-Holland

  • Tange Lab / University of Tokyo – The Metabolist Group●

    1960s–1970s

    Kenzo Tange, Kisho Kurokawa, Fumihiko Maki, Masato Ohtaka, Arata Isozaki, Isamu Noguchi

  • MIT AI Lab / Project MAC●

    1960s–1980s

    Marvin Minsky, Seymour Papert, Richard Stallman, Tom Knight, Gerald Sussman

  • Stanford design-and-tech culture

    1960s–present

    David Kelley, Bernard Roth, Bill Moggridge, Hasso Plattner

  • Andy Warhol's Factory●

    1962–1987

    Andy Warhol, Edie Sedgwick, Lou Reed, Nico, Billy Name, Paul Morrissey, Gerard Malanga

  • Black Arts Movement●

    1965–1975

    Amiri Baraka, Sonia Sanchez, Nikki Giovanni, Larry Neal, Faith Ringgold, Romare Bearden

  • Institute of Architecture and Urban Studies●

    1967–1985

    Peter Eisenman, Michael Graves, Richard Meier, John Hejduk, Colin Rowe, Kenneth Frampton

  • The Five Architects / New York

    1969–1980s

    Peter Eisenman, Michael Graves, Charles Gwathmey, John Hejduk, Richard Meier

  • Xerox PARC●

    1970–1985

    Alan Kay, Robert Metcalfe, Butler Lampson, Adele Goldberg, Charles Thacker, Larry Tesler

  • Düsseldorf Electronic Scene●

    1970s–1980s

    Kraftwerk, Neu!, Cluster, La Düsseldorf, Conny Plank, Michael Rother

  • Cooper Union / New York architecture-design circle

    1970s–1980s

    John Hejduk, Diane Lewis, Daniel Libeskind, Elizabeth Diller, Ricardo Scofidio

  • CalArts●

    1970s–present

    John Baldessari, Nam June Paik, Mike Kelley, Tim Burton, Brad Bird, Judy Chicago

  • Morphosis / SCI-Arc / Los Angeles Architecture Scene

    1970s–present

    Thom Mayne, Michael Rotondi, Eric Owen Moss, Frank Gehry, Hsinming Fung

  • SIGGRAPH / Computer Graphics Community

    1970s–present

    Ed Catmull, Alvy Ray Smith, Jim Blinn, Ivan Sutherland, Loren Carpenter

  • AA under Alvin Boyarsky●

    1971–1990

    Alvin Boyarsky, Bernard Tschumi, Zaha Hadid, Rem Koolhaas, Nigel Coates, Daniel Libeskind

  • Delos Symposium / Ekistics●

    1972–present

    Constantinos Doxiadis, Margaret Mead, Jacques-Louis Lions, Kenneth Boulding, Buckminster Fuller

  • Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc)●

    1972–present

    Thom Mayne, Michael Rotondi, Eric Owen Moss, Morphosis, Frank Gehry

  • CBGB / Downtown New York Punk Scene●

    1973–1983

    Patti Smith, Talking Heads, Ramones, Television, Blondie, Richard Hell

  • Homebrew Computer Club●

    1975–1986

    Steve Wozniak, Steve Jobs, Lee Felsenstein, Gordon French, Bob Marsh

  • OMA●

    1975–present

    Rem Koolhaas, Elia Zenghelis, Madelon Vriesendorp, David Gianotten, Reinier de Graaf

  • Lucasfilm / ILM●

    1975–present

    George Lucas, John Dykstra, Dennis Muren, Ben Burtt, Phil Tippett, Joe Johnston

  • Studio 54 / Late 1970s New York Nightlife

    1977–1980

    Steve Rubell, Ian Schrager, Bianca Jagger, Grace Jones, Andy Warhol, Halston, Diana Ross

  • Mudd Club / Downtown New York

    1978–1983

    Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, Ann Magnuson, Fab 5 Freddy, David Byrne

  • Factory Records●

    1978–1992

    Tony Wilson, Martin Hannett, Joy Division, New Order, Happy Mondays, The Durutti Column

  • M Studio / Minneapolis Sound

    late 1970s–1980s

    Prince, The Revolution, Sheila E., Jimmy Jam, Terry Lewis, Morris Day, The Time

  • Chicago House Origins●

    late 1970s–1980s

    Frankie Knuckles, Ron Hardy, Marshall Jefferson, Larry Heard, Farley Jackmaster Funk

  • Detroit Techno●

    1980s–1990s

    Juan Atkins, Derrick May, Kevin Saunderson, Jeff Mills, Carl Craig

  • Björk / The Sugarcubes / Reykjavík Scene

    1980s–1990s

    Björk, The Sugarcubes, Einar Örn Benediktsson, Sigur Rós, GusGus

  • Sub Pop / Seattle●

    1980s–1990s

    Bruce Pavitt, Jonathan Poneman, Nirvana, Mudhoney, Soundgarden, Tad

  • Memphis Group●

    1981–1988

    Ettore Sottsass, Michele De Lucchi, Nathalie Du Pasquier, Matteo Thun, George Sowden

  • MIT Media Lab●

    1985–present

    Nicholas Negroponte, Seymour Papert, Tod Machover, Neri Oxman, Joi Ito, Pattie Maes

  • Pixar●

    1986–present

    John Lasseter, Ed Catmull, Steve Jobs, Pete Docter, Andrew Stanton, Brad Bird, Lee Unkrich

  • Young British Artists (YBAs)●

    late 1980s–2000s

    Damien Hirst, Tracey Emin, Sarah Lucas, Rachel Whiteread, Gary Hume, Angus Fairhurst

  • Deconstructivist Architecture Exhibition●

    1988

    Philip Johnson, Mark Wigley, Frank Gehry, Rem Koolhaas, Zaha Hadid, Peter Eisenman, Daniel Libeskind

  • General Magic

    1990–2002

    Marc Porat, Andy Hertzfeld, Bill Atkinson, Joanna Hoffman, Megan Smith, Tony Fadell

  • Atlanta Hip-Hop●

    1990s–present

    OutKast, Ludacris, T.I., Future, Gucci Mane, Young Jeezy, Lil Jon

  • Berlin Electronic Scene after 1989●

    1990s–present

    Ellen Allien, Paul van Dyk, Ricardo Villalobos, Modeselektor, Marcel Dettmann, Ben Klock

  • Cheiron Studios

    1992–present

    Max Martin, Shellback, Dr. Luke, Britney Spears, The Weeknd, Ariana Grande

  • Saddle Creek Records

    1994–present

    Bright Eyes, The Faint, Cursive, Azure Ray, The Postal Service

  • Dogme 95●

    1995–2005

    Lars von Trier, Thomas Vinterberg, Søren Kragh-Jacobsen, Kristian Levring

  • PayPal●

    1998–2002

    Peter Thiel, Max Levchin, Elon Musk, Reid Hoffman, David Sacks, Roelof Botha, Jeremy Stoppelman

  • Paperless Studios at GSAPP

    2000s–present

    Mark Wigley, Neri Oxman, Jesse Reiser, Nanako Umemoto, Richard Horden

  • Y Combinator●

    2005–present

    Paul Graham, Jessica Livingston, Robert Tappan Morris, Trevor Blackwell, Sam Altman, Garry Tan

  • OpenAI / San Francisco AI Cluster

    2015–present

    Ilya Sutskever, Andrej Karpathy, Mira Murati, John Schulman, Greg Brockman, Dario Amodei