California Dreamin’
Our author ruminates on a year spent as a visionary in residence.
Arts + Culture
Gehryland, USA
Should one architect—even the world’s most famous architect—be responsible for all of the buildings in two massive developments?
No Laughing Matter
Is MoMA’s worshipful approach to objects appropriate for security?
Graphic Designer Paula Scher Maps an Atlas of the World
In the early 1990s, renowned graphic designer Paula Scher began painting small, opinionated maps—colorful depictions of continents and regions, covered from top to bottom by a scrawl of words. Within a few years, the maps grew larger and more elaborate.…
Modern Mediation Today
Creating a restaurant inside the new MoMA required acts of imagination—and diplomacy.
Reading Rem: An Exclusive Q&A with Koolhaas
In May, two days before the Seattle Central Library’s official opening, the building’s architect, Rem Koolhaas, discussed the structure with Metropolis contributing editor Christopher Hawthorne. The interview took place in a staff conference room on the library’s 11th floor; the…
Subterranean Modernity
The stout and utilitarian subway bench may be one of the best pieces of design in New York’s public realm.
Urban/Suburban Splendor
The new Whole Foods store inside the Time Warner Center offers New Yorkers something truly unique: space.
Mirror Image
In the automotive world, brand identity seems to have taken a clear second place to plain, old-fashioned copying.
Wanted: New Cabs
A look back at a classic MoMA show on taxi design reveals the sorry state of today’s fleet.
Superstudio: The Architecture Collective That Influenced a Generation
A bearded hippy wearing only his underpants emerges from what appears to be a subterranean concrete bunker. He’s followed by a shaggy man in overalls, a topless woman with long hair, and another, and another, like clowns from a Volkswagen.…
Walk/Don't Walk
New York’s flashing—and literal—street signs have gone the way of the Automat.
Learning from Scully
For decades, Yale’s voice of architecture wasn’t an architect.
Inverse Attention
Why do automakers doing the least interesting design talk about it the most?
Starcked Out
The former enfant terrible is veering dangerously close to self-parody.
Flat Screen Illusion
As TVs get thinner, the dance between 2 and 3 dimensions gets more intriguing.
Branded Architecture
At auto shows, the exhibition design is often flashier than the cars themselves.
Making Magis
With his controversial new design for the Italian manufacturer, Konstantin Grcic aims to topple the regime of consumer-friendly minimalism.
Disposable Architecture
Ignoring its Modernist lineage, Ikea seeks to dismantle a classic Marcel Breuer building.
Carbon Fiber Future
Can a prototype skyscraper made entirely of composite materials survive the post-9/11 mania for safety?
