This Opening Panel for Avenues to a Great City is part of an event series looking to the past, present, and future to explore the influence of The Plan of Nashville, twenty years after its publication. Join the author of The Plan and other key participants as they discuss the project’s development, publication, and subsequent impact, making the case that it is only by reflecting on the past context of planning in our city that we can continue to vision for the future.
About the Panelists
Seab A. Tuck
After graduating with a degree in architecture from Auburn University, Seab A. Tuck practiced elsewhere in Nashville before starting his firm in 1984. Tuck-Hinton Architects prepared numerous master plans for schools, universities, parks, and the city. Many of their projects were awarded and published nationally. Their most notable projects include the Bicentennial Capitol Mall, the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, the Frist Art Museum Museum, and, with a larger team, the Music City Center. Tuck helped establish the Urban Design Forum and was on the founding committee for the Nashville Urban Design Center. As its second president, he helped initiate The Plan of Nashville. He has also been involved in Leadership Nashville and served on the boards of Leadership Middle Tennessee and Cumberland Region Tomorrow. Tuck was inducted as a fellow in the American Institute of Architects and received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Tennessee Chapter the AIA. He retired at the end of 2018 to enjoy his many hobbies and four grandchildren.
Christine Kreyling
Christine Kreyling is an architectural historian, freelance writer, and former journalist. For thirty years, she served as the architecture and urban planning critic for the Nashville Scene; her articles for the Scene received three best-writing awards from the American Planning Association. In 2014, Kreyling was named one of the “Twenty-five Nashvillians who’ve shaped the city for the better since 1989” by the Nashville Scene—the only journalist on the list. She has contributed to Architectural Record, Competition, Planning, and Preservation magazines.
Kreyling has authored a number of books and essays, including The Plan of Nashville (Vanderbilt Press, 2005) and Shaping the Healthy Community, which she coauthored and edited with the Nashville Civic Design Center (Vanderbilt Press, 2016). Kreyling was one of the founders of the Nashville Urban Design Forum and the Nashville Civic Design Center. She is the former chief curator of the Cheekwood Museum of Art and has an MA in art and architectural history from Vanderbilt University. After thirty-four years in Nashville, she currently lives in the Sea Ranch, California, and Tucson, Arizona.
Gary Gaston
Gary Gaston is the CEO of the Nashville Civic Design Center and serves as assistant professor of practice at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, College of Architecture + Design. He received his bachelor of architecture degree from UTK and a MEd in community development and action from Vanderbilt University.
Gaston has helped lead numerous planning and design efforts for the Civic Design Center during his nearly twenty-year tenure, including its visionary 2005 publication The Plan of Nashville: Avenues to a Great City. Gaston served as executive producer of the National Endowment for the Arts–funded documentary film Design Your Neighborhood and coauthored two books, Moving Tennessee Forward: Models for Connecting Communities (2012), and Shaping the Healthy Community: The Nashville Plan, published by Vanderbilt University Press in 2016. Gaston is from West Tennessee, where he serves as the beekeeper for his family farm. He is passionate about preservation and enhancement of public spaces and expanding opportunities for youth through design-based education in public schools. Gaston serves on the board of directors of The District and is a member of the Rotary Club of Nashville.
Joni Williams
Joni Williams is the assistant director of strategic integration and program development with the Nashville Planning Department. She leads cross-departmental initiatives that align urban design, ecological priorities, and policy innovation, and is currently overseeing the integration of Historic Zoning staff into the department to strengthen coordination across planning and preservation efforts.
With a background in architecture and a passion for strategic design leadership, Williams has guided the evolution of the Planning Department’s Design Studio—establishing specialized teams in urban design, ecological design, and design review. Her work centers on professional development, cross-sector collaboration, and elevating design quality throughout Nashville. Williams moved to Nashville in 2005 after completing degrees in architecture from Judson University and is celebrating her twenty-year “Nashversary” this summer.
Image at top: Metro Planning Department, 1963. Published in Christine Kreyling, The Plan of Nashville: Avenues to a Great City (Civic Design Center, 2005). Courtesy of the Civic Design Center
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