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30 Influential Covers
Recognized for their vivid graphic expressions for three decades, Metropolis covers continue to connect culture-shaping trends to the designed environment at every scale.
July 1981
Cover designed by Design Hdqtrs
Our first issue started with a New York focus and was printed mainly in black and white. The Metropolis logo appears with the tagline, "The Architecture and Design Magazine of New York." One of the feature stories discusses solar architecture in the city, what we now know as "green" or "sustainable" design-which becomes one of the magazine's ongoing interests.
June 1984
Cover designed by Cornelia Walworth
In the 1980's top architects, like the Venturis, were called on by high-end furniture manufactures to design products. The scroll reads, "Learning from Grandma," referring to the pattern printed on the bent-ply Knoll chair, reminiscent of Venturi's grandmother's dress.
December 1984
Cover designed by Peggy Roalf
Marking the beginning of our interest in workplace design, the cover features an archival photo of Steelcase employees standing on the company's sturdy filing cabinets. At the time, few magazines would have considered publishing a story that took a thorough look into the history of the corporate office.
October 1985
Cover designed by Peggy Roalf
Derek Ungless redesigned the Metropolis logo, giving it a bold, tall, skyscraper-like look; 30 years and a few minor refinements later, it's still our logo. This first special issue documented "The Best of Design in New York City."
September 1987
Cover designed by Helene Silverman and Jeff Christensen
Sleek, impenetrable modernity- in this case corporate logos tumbling forth to reveal their various stripes- often bumped up against the naïve, knowable symbols of less complex times, like Tropic-Ana carrying a bowl of oranges. Inside, the feature story discussed the evolution of corporate branding.
May 1988
Cover designed by Thunderjockeys + Helene Silverman
The Thunderjockeys, young designers from London, known for their multimedia design and performance art, combined photos of Coney Island, comic-book art, and their own flourishes to create this illustration on a computer, a machine surrounded by its own visions of a better world. This cover appeared before the Metropolis staff began using computers.
October 1988
Cover designed by Andrew Moore + Helene Silverman
Hometowns were an endangered species by the 1980's. For this image, New York artist Andrew Moore layered transparent negatives of photos he took in small towns in Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and New Jersey.
December 1988
Cover designed by Helene Silverman and Jeff Christensen
To delve into the particulars of sustainability, we photographed New York's Fresh Kills landfill to show what packaging designers were contributing to our solid-waste stream.
May 1990
Cover designed by Jeff Christensen and Jim Christie
Edison's sketch of the incandescent bulb, a symbol of the minimal lamp, is superimposed on a photo of aluminum forms. An enclosed poster showed a century of modern lamps in a Post-Modern setting.
October 1991
Cover designed by Carl Lehman-Haupt and Nancy Cohen
New York City needed fixing, so we asked designers to do it. The logo mimes a liquid crystal formation that changes color as it warms up. The issue contained our Design Explorations: 2001 competition in which we asked, "How will we live in 2011?" Our new tagline, "The Urban Magazine of Architecture and Design," reflects a more national and international scope.
November 1992
Cover designed by Carl Lehman-Haupt and Nancy Cohen
A symbol of ascent to one person can signify an insurmountable physical barrier to another. The computer-stretched photographs of stairways with flat Braille dots spelling out "access" attempt to show the limitations in designing environments and objects, magazines included, that welcome all.
November 1993
Cover designed by Carl Lehman-Haupt and Nancy Cohen
Calling attention to paper as a material to study, we showed it shredded and as a toilet paper roll. Metropolis was the first American design magazine to run a story on Shigeru Ban's paper architecture.
October 1994
Cover designed by Carl Lehman-Haupt and Nancy Cohen
In the early 1990's an emerging global culture was brought to the attention of the design world. Multiculturalism's impact on the designed environment is an ongoing theme as local cultures assert themselves in a global marketplace.
January 1995
Cover designed by Kristine Larsen + Carl Lehman-Haupt and Nancy Cohen
Metropolis has always covered the changing face of technology. The photograph shows a woman eating a computer chip, calling attention to our story on the corporate, scientific, and utopian dreams of an electronic future.
March 1995
Cover designed by Carl Lehman-Haupt and Nancy Cohen
Type design becomes a hot topic as graphic designers adapt to technological changes, such as electronic typesetting. The use of Campbell's Alphabet Soup helped us convey this shift.
November 1995
Cover designed by Carl Lehman-Haupt and William van Roden
These standard No. 2 pencils represent the quintessential educational tool and the most basic design instrument. The diversity of the course offerings listed on them reflects what was happening in the expanding architecture and design curricula.
January 1997
Cover designed by Carl Lehman-Haupt and William van Roden
In November 1996, as hundreds of thousands of Rwandan refugees streamed back into their war-torn country, the world was reminded once more that for a growing number of people, decent shelter is still a dream. We could not resist the image.
November 1999
Cover designed by Paula Scher
Paula Scher, a partner at Pentagram, re-designs Metropolis. As the size of the magazine is cut down, the logo gets cropped and the subtitle removed. Inside, the design was cinematic in its approach: the logo moved side to side and up and down, then torqued on the last pages.
December 2001
Cover designed by Criswell Lappin
Our first cover after September 11, 2001 originally showed a skewed perspective of the World Trade Center towers intact. The image was changed the day before the issue went to the printer, when we learned another publication planned a similar cover. This archival shot, backed up by an optimistic sky, depicted the towers under construction. We felt it represented the questions surrounding the future of Lower Manhattan.
July 2003
Cover designed by Criswell Lappin
Readers have always turned to Metropolis for the latest in product design. The unusual image created by the shadow of an inverted Mirra task chair only hints at the chairs form, imparting a sense of mystery.
October 2003
Cover designed by DJ Stout + Criswell Lappin
A new study on global warming found that architecture was a major contributor to pollution. In this issue Metropolis challenges the profession to turn green, and the cover displays blueprints emitting clouds of black smoke- a strong visual call to arms.
October 2004
Cover designed by: DJ Stout + Criswell Lappin
Collaboration between many design professionals reached a new level of sophistication at the Seattle Public Library. This cover focuses on the teamwork required to complete the project and shows multiple hands working on the same model, dispelling the myth of the imperial architect.
January 2005
Cover designed by Criswell Lappin and Nancy Nowacek
The decision to use a bird's-eye view of Lucia Eames in the living room of her father and stepmother's famous house stems from a similarly posed photograph of Charles and Ray. The desire to create a unique image while referencing the past is a nod to the importance of preserving modernist architecture.
April 2006
Cover designed by Criswell Lappin and Nancy Nowacek
With its silvery sheen, star bursts, bold colors, and colossal "25," this cover celebrates our quarter-century of covering the best in architecture, design, and culture. Contained within the numbers are the names of people, places, and objects that appear in the issue.
July 2006
Cover design by Quick Honey + Criswell Lappin and Nancy Nowacek
Workplace design took a leap into the electronic future when Google decided to remake its headquarters to reflect the new ways of the office. The un-tethered, relaxed work environment included 24/7 food service—perfect for the Geek Shangri-La.
March 2008
Cover designed by Peter Mendelsund + Criswell Lappin and Dungjai Pungauthaikan
With talk about localism in a sustainable world, our special product issue explored everything from Brazil's urban culture influencing furniture design to the first digital data base documenting the proportions of Asian heads and faces. The vernacular typefaces underscore the rich variety of design expressions to be found in local flavor.
October 2008
Cover designed by Chris Ro of ADearFriend + Dungjai Pungauthaikan and Criswell Lappin
To illustrate how a new generation of design activists is reshaping the world, we focused our attention on the rise of the citizen architect. A caring architect's hand holds up a broken and fragile globe while inspiring projects and ideas spill forth.
May 2009
Cover designed by Brian Collins, John Fulbrook III, Timothy Goodman, Jason Nuttall + Criswell Lappin and Dungjai Pungauthaikan
A French team of architects and engineers won the Next Generation Design Competition in 2009 for adapting existing electrical pylons by adding the windmills they designed. To covey this visionary idea toward energy independence, the graphic design team made a cloud-lined pinwheel and showed a hand pinning it to an abstracted pylon, prompting our editors to write: "Pinning Our Hopes on the Wind".
January 2011
Cover designed by Always With Honors + Dungjai Pungauthaikan and Ashley Stevens
Starting with the September 2009 issue, we adjusted the magazine's size once more and reinstituted our full-size logo. To emphasize our legendary multi-disciplinary coverage of design, the graphic team created symbols for six areas of "game changing" activities—from redefining civic leadership to transforming the architecture practice.
April 2011
Cover designed by Stephen Doyle + Dungjai Pungauthaikan and Ashley Stevens
How to represent 30 years of covering architecture and design? Build "a monumental paper salute," said Doyle. "Using the full spectrum could allude to Metropolis's colorful past. And because the paper model is folded, it's only partially revealed...the twists and turns of the structure and the linear quality were a perfect way to convey a timeline of ideas shared and excellence celebrated."
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2011 Metropolis Conference Videos Now Online
This year’s ICFF conference featured a cast of “design entrepreneurs” who are reinventing their practices through creative approaches to the new economy.
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