Le Corbusier as I Knew Him
The following essay was published in 1977 in “The Open Hand: Essays on Le Corbusier,” one of the first sizable works containing original research, archival material, and personal reflections on the iconic modernist architect Le Corbusier to appear in English.
https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/…
Architecture’s Colonial Reckoning
Calls to “decolonize” architecture have been gaining support, but what does this actually mean?
https://archpaper.com/2021/04/calls…
Survey to Surveillance
The U.S.-Mexico border is not a line on the ground, but a network diagram drawn through bodies and databases.
https://placesjournal.org/article/s…
Five Women Architects Revitalize a Giant Public-Housing Project in Rome
Corviale is one of Italy’s biggest postwar public-housing projects and, arguably, one of the most controversial. Both revered and abhorred, the complex remains a pilgrimage site for architectural schools from around the world.
https://commonedge.org/five-women-a…
Tunnel visionary: why was land artist Nancy Holt never given her due?
Holt made mesmerising works that filtered stars and vanished in the desert heat. But land art was seen as a male preserve. A new exhibition redresses the balance.
https://theguardian.com/artanddesig…
MoMA wants to cancel Philip Johnson – many who knew him do not
A gallery bearing the architect’s name also seeks to obliterate it.
https://theguardian.com/commentisfr…
Architecture in film: modernism, futurism and beyond
From modernist houses to futuristic landscapes, the built environment and the ambience it creates play a key role in visual storytelling.
https://wallpaper.com/architecture/…
Two new books about Kenneth Frampton help broaden the horizons of modern architecture
Architectural history has a tendency to cross the line into boosterism. Such was the famous contention of the historian Manfredo Tafuri, who chastised his peers for using their platform to promote various stylistic developments.
https://archpaper.com/2021/04/two-b…
How this year’s Pritzker Prize winners could spark an architectural revolution
In a world in which flamboyance and style have long determined how an architect becomes a star, this approach—doing nothing—is an act of resistance.
https://fastcompany.com/90623368/ho…
The Golden Ratio, a supposed Greek invention, may have African roots
The Golden Ratio, a hallmark of Swiss design and the foundation of everything from Helvetica to Le Corbusier’s meticulous architecture, may have been imported from Africa.
https://fastcompany.com/90616802/th…
It’s Time to Put Alice Neel in Her Rightful Place in the Pantheon
A large retrospective feels at home in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s grandest galleries and should silence any doubt about the artist’s originality or her importance.
https://nytimes.com/2021/04/01/arts…
Architects, Let’s Reaffirm Your Mission Today
ARCHITECT columnist Michael Caton wonders if firms can do good in society and do well in business—and finds the example of Danish Kurani.
https://architectmagazine.com/pract…
Take No Prisoners
Architect Deanna Van Buren is building positive alternatives to the criminal justice system.
https://altaonline.com/dispatches/a…
The Principles of Community CoDesign
We live in divided times. Extreme forces of pandemic and political polarization are challenging not only essential interactions between individuals and institutions, but the very relationship with the ecosystems through which our lives are sustained.
https://commonedge.org/the-principl…
Richard Saul Wurman: “There’s a Louis Kahn Cult, and I’m a Member!”
Dan Klyn, who teaches information architecture at the University of Michigan, is currently researching and writing a biography entitled Richard Saul Wurman’s 5 Lives.
https://commonedge.org/richard-saul…
Stuck in Beta: Amanda Kolson Hurley’s Radical Suburbs
Pal John Parman reviews Amanda Kolson Hurley's new book.
https://arcadenw.org/journal/stuck-…
Hollywood’s Golden Age, As Photographed By Charles Eames
The iconic midcentury polymath documented the making of Billy Wilder’s most famous films.
https://fastcompany.com/3057807/hol…
An Elusive Artist’s Trove of Never-Before-Seen Images
In the years leading up to his death, Ray Johnson took up photography. Now, this body of work is shedding light on his final days.
https://nytimes.com/2021/03/23/t-ma…
The Fantastic Architecture of Niki de Saint Phalle
In her first major museum exhibition in New York City, MoMA PS1’s Niki de Saint Phalle: Structures for Life investigates the artist’s underexplored relationship to the built environment.
https://metropolismag.com/architect…
The Pritzker Prize Honors French Architects Lacaton & Vassal
The modernist hopes and dreams to improve the lives of many are reinvigorated through their work that responds to the climatic and ecological emergencies of our time, as well as social urgencies, particularly in the realm of urban housing.
https://architecturalrecord.com/art…
Architecture has a racist past. These artists radically reimagined it
It’s no revelation that Black Americans have been underserved by architects and urban planners. Systemic racism pervades the built environment–from segregated communities and freeways built on top of Black neighborhoods to prejudiced housing practices and a lack of Black representation in the development process.
https://fastcompany.com/90614610/ar…
Why Bruce Mau still believes design can change the world
A new documentary looks at the career and vision of designer Bruce Mau.
https://fastcompany.com/90616159/al…
Health and Wellness Become Top of Mind for New-Home Builders and Buyers
Our pal, Katie Ackerley, of DBA, is quoted here.
https://builderonline.com/building/…
In a Changing World, Design Studios Find Stability and Social Equity in the Co-op Model
The co-op model offers collectively pooled financial backing, creative autonomy, and social responsibility in a changing world.
https://eyeondesign.aiga.org/in-a-t…
Albers and Morandi: Never Finished
The work that’s never truly done for the scholar of art is to relate an intimate experience of the artist’s task without merely boiling it down to a referential precipitate.
https://brooklynrail.org/2021/03/ar…
Review of ‘Building a new New World: Amerikanizm in Russian Architecture’ and ‘Avant-Garde as Method: Vkhutemas and the Pedagogy of Space, 1920–1930’
Thinking about the historical architectural and technical exchanges between the United States and Russia might not seem like an important topic at the moment, suggesting as it does espionage, nuclear war, and disinformation campaigns.
https://architecturalrecord.com/art…
