"5x5" Exhibition Proves Architects Can Still Tackle Thorny Political Issues
The show, currently at the Center for Architecture in New York, uses architecture to explore themes beyond it.
Anthony Paletta
Frank Lloyd Wright's Life, In Hipster-Friendly Illustrations
Despite its styling as a kids book—the illustrations are cartoonish in the way Chris Ware's are—this biography is a substantive account of Wright's life and work.
Liberation by Architecture: The Optimism of African Modernism
Modernism was once looked to by the emerging states of West Africa to jump-start self-rule. The remnants of this experience, as a new exhibition shows, still radiate that optimism.
New Retrospective Glimpses the Man Behind the Maison de Verre
With the help of VR and other technology, the Jewish Museum's ambitious exhibition on Pierre Chareau reveals a splendidly idiosyncratic life and work.
A Brief History of Affordable Housing in New York City
Affordable housing's future depends on us learning lessons from the past.
Snøhetta Makes the Daily Lunch Break the Central Focus of Its Workplace
Fewer than 20 percent of American office workers take a lunch break, partly because the average workplace doesn’t have a lunch room. Architecture firm Snøhetta has designed its own offices to accommodate this important activity and make it the central focus of the workday.
Beyond Gaudí Exhibit: La Sagrada Familia's Collaboration Across Time
An ongoing show at the City College of New York casts the architect's unfinished masterpiece in a new light.
The High Line's Last Section Plays Up Its Rugged Past
The final stretch of New York's elevated park is a satisfying conclusion.
George Matei Cantacuzino, Romania's Forgotten Modernist
A new book explores the Romanian architect's "hybrid" work, which stressed an organic conception of modernism while still retaining some local tradition.
New Book Photographs Columbus, Indiana's Modernist Landmarks
Even if you have visited the Midwestern Modernist Mecca, this new collection of fish-eyed photos beckons you to take another look.
A Guide to Pyongyang's "Neutered" Modernist Architecture
The best-preserved open-air museum of socialist architecture represents the grim reality of oppression
A History of Racecourse Architecture
A number of racecourses can boast traditions of continuous use that put any other sport to shame
James Stirling, Modernist Prophet or Postmodernist Poster Child?
Was James Stirling modernism’s last great prophet, or postmodernism’s original poster child?
Size Doesn't Trump All With Phaidon's "Atlas of Architecture"
Phaidon's Atlas of Architecture is both extensive and comprehensive
The Condo, A Kind of Housing Model Every American Can Love
Mies Van Der Rohe's 860-880 North Lake Shore Drive, Chicago (c/o Wayne Andrews/Esto) The subtitle of Matthew Gordon Lasner’s High Life: Condo Living in the Suburban Century (Yale University Press, 2012) might suggest a story of determined residential heterodoxy. Could this…
Phaidon Releases Compendium of Concrete Architecture
Concrete, edited by William Hall with an essay by Leonard Karen, $49.95 US/CAN, Phaidon March 2013, www.phaidon.com When I encounter a book dust jacket that’s textured to the touch I usually assume that it’s a willful distraction from the contents within;…
Pockets of Long Island Once Went Crazy for Modernism. Why?
Long Island at the mid-twentieth-century, you might have heard, was a place of explosive growth. Most of this was not very interesting. Sprawl. Tract housing. Billy Joel. They came with the island’s rapid suburban development. For a brighter look at…
The Prudential Center: A Bright Exception to a Dark Age of Urban Planning
An overly co-dependent couple, as any dinner party guest knows all too well, can cast an alienating pall over nearly a whole table. In the world of postwar urban planning this noxiously self-absorbed pairing was played, more often than not,…
The Socialist Car & Its Impact on Soviet Cities
To get one large point out of the way: In the new book, The Socialist Car: Automobility in the Eastern Bloc, several contributors rapidly acknowledge the oxymoron of the title as well as the practice of owning a car in…
