Isaac Julien with Zoë Hopkins
In the past four decades, British filmmaker Sir Isaac Julien has become widely celebrated for his pioneering body of work, which combines avant-garde film techniques with an incisive gaze at the politico-historical tumult of our world and a careful grip on the intellectual and philosophical currents that have shaped modernity.
https://brooklynrail.org/2024/07/ar…
Failing the Driving Test with Kevin Barry
Kevin Barry is widely recognized as one of the most gifted fiction writers to emerge from the English-speaking world in the new century.
https://theparisreview.org/blog/201…
Welcome to the world of radical authenticity — how the internet is bringing sexual and gender diversity to the fore
The ability to ask questions, learn and find community online is transforming the way people identify, particularly Gen Z.
https://universityofcalifornia.edu/…
Peculiar Décor
Notes on the Gaza solidarity encampments.
https://nyra.nyc/articles/peculiar-…
8 Revelations From Louis Kahn’s Last Sketchbook
The architect who designed some of the 20th century’s great buildings kept a notebook with intimate glimpses into his creative vision. Now it’s his daughter’s final goodbye.
https://nytimes.com/2024/07/11/arts…
Norman Maclean Didn’t Publish Much. What He Did Contains Everything
You could read his literary output in a single day, yet it includes almost all there is to know about what the English language can do.
https://newyorker.com/magazine/2024…
The Queer Imagination, Then and Now
This essay series, generously supported by Scott Lynn, is named in honor of the art historian and critic Irving Sandler, whose broad spirit was epitomized in the question he would ask, with searching eyes, whenever he met someone or saw someone again: what are you thinking about?
https://brooklynrail.org/2024/07/ar…
Minoru Yamasaki: The Fragility of Architecture
His work—more than 250 buildings in the span of 30 years—was lauded by critics and colleagues, cited for international design awards, and landed the architect on the cover of Time.
https://commonedge.org/minoru-yamas…
Here comes the sun: Zadie Smith on hope, trepidation and rebirth after 14 years of the Tories
I used to shock US audiences with my stories of Britain’s excellent, accessible universities and healthcare. Then the Conservatives ruined the country. Now real change is on the horizon.
https://theguardian.com/politics/ar…
Notes on a Last-Minute Safari
We saw every animal that was in “The Lion King” and then some. They were just there, like ants at a picnic, except that they were elephants and giraffes and zebras.
https://newyorker.com/magazine/2024…
The true losers of this presidential debate were the American people
We didn’t need this show. Each candidate has had time to show us who they are, and one is a felon trying to destroy democracy.
https://theguardian.com/commentisfr…
Even If a Project Fails, the Ideas Behind It Don’t Disappear
For architects and designers, unbuilt/unrealized projects are confounding, bittersweet, frustrating, elusive, even ghostly—the ultimate what-ifs.
https://commonedge.org/even-if-a-pr…
Kanye West Bought an Architectural Treasure—Then Gave It a Violent Remix
How the hip-hop star’s beautiful, dark, twisted fantasy turned a beach house in Malibu, designed by the Japanese master Tadao Ando, into a ruin.
https://newyorker.com/magazine/2024…
Going Once, Going Twice
No doubt it’s a finer fate than the place becoming an Apple Store.
https://nyra.nyc/articles/going-onc…
The Co-op Where Everyone’s an Architecture Critic
When Paul Goldberger moved into U.N. Plaza last year, he joined a cadre of design-obsessed owners.
https://curbed.com/article/paul-gol…
Fox and Hedgehog
The myths of Anne Carson.
https://thenation.com/article/cultu…
We’ll Always Have Paris?
The City of Light still has some fight left in it.
https://nyra.nyc/articles/we-ll-alw…
Michael Shorris on Joan Mitchell & James Schuyler
Like much of Schuyler’s work, “Daylight” is precise and unadorned, yet touching in its plaintive prose.
https://brooklynrail.org/2024/06/1b…
O.J. and L.A.
O.J. Simpson’s death earlier this month marked the end of a tragic trajectory, a long and enduring descent from national hero to pariah.
https://commonedge.org/o-j-and-l-a/
Brancusi Makes the Modern World Look Stale
In Paris, a rare retrospective shows that we still haven’t matched the sculptor’s grace, humor, and clear-eyed brilliance.
https://newyorker.com/magazine/2024…
Rael San Fratello 3D Prints Architecture with a Political Edge
Oakland, California–based architects Ronald Rael and Virginia San Fratello harness advanced technology to challenge old political structures and imagine new forms.
https://metropolismag.com/profiles/…
Means and Ends
What would happen if we foregrounded human values in the creation of our systems?
https://nyra.nyc/articles/means-and…
The Architectural Gift
Gifted buildings are potent mechanisms of geopolitical reshuffling, premised on an uneven power relation between giver and receiver. How do such exchanges shape cities in transition?
https://placesjournal.org/article/t…
Designing the Future With Children
The “future” is a topic of concern even for young children as stories about the world burning, massive floods sweeping people off of their homes and livelihoods, and countless numbers of people drowning while trying to flee into safer zones, have become the new normal on our news screens.
https://platformspace.net/home/desi…
The British Museum’s Blockbuster Scandals
While facing renewed accusations of cultural theft, the institution announced that it had been the victim of actual theft—from someone on the inside.
https://newyorker.com/magazine/2024…
Shibboleth
Nothing like a quiet breakfast.
https://newyorker.com/news/essay/sh…
