Modern LoveAt the Cooper-Hewitt and Cooper Union, two exhibits
highlight Modernism’s legacy—from bobby-pin necklaces
to a wild cyclone of an atrium.
Tower RecordsMoMA QNS’s “Tall Buildings” exhibit features thrilling international twists on the skyscraper. Why can’t Manhattan learn to think as big?
Flower PowerJust in time for spring, a new entrance gives the city’s most expansive garden a gateway commensurate with the glories inside.
Light FantasticA new entrance to the Brooklyn Museum and a plan to reinvent Lincoln Center’s north campus add sparkle and spaciousness to aging fortresses.
Tall TalesThe Skyscraper Museum settles down—in the spot where the city went vertical in the first place; modern times at the Cooper-Hewitt.
Twin PiquesHaving designed a center that revels in the exuberant complexities of Columbus Circle, Time Warner’s architects stint on the details.
Roots of MemoryChanges unveiled this week to Michael Arad’s bold, dignified design for the WTC memorial are likely to include more greenery—not nec […]
HooplaFrank Gehry’s plan for Atlantic Avenue centers on a graceful raised arena for the Nets; a post-Gehry firm takes on Soho’s New Museum.
Memento MoriEight elegant proposals for a memorial at the World Trade Center honor the living
as much as the victims of 9/11.
Mod WorldJean Prouvé’s modular creations upended mid-century design; Vito Acconci turns architecture into performance art.
Disappearing ActDaniel Libeskind’s plan for ground zero was the people’s choice, but the architect has been virtually neutralized by commercial forces.
Lost in SpaceA Soho exhibition of Zaha Hadid’s work reveals an architect who is shaking up the way we
experience architecture.
Sophomore JinxLike its predecessor, the Cooper-Hewitt’s second triennial exhibition is all over the
design map; this time, however, the curators fail […]
Into the WoodIn a historic Hudson Valley setting, architect Frank Gehry works his ethereal design magic with a new performing-arts center for Bard College.
Space InvadersThe eight worst buildings to have blighted our
skyline.
Blithe SpiritsThe Whitney offers a mid-career retrospective of Diller + Scofidio, architects
whose hallmark is unabashed modernism—with a great sense […]
Winner Takes What?Now that he’s got the nod to rebuild ground zero, Daniel Libeskind must fight for his ideas.
Site UnseenThe two final plans for rebuilding ground zero may seem like a triumph of design, but in fact they’re a triumph for developers.
Vision QuestsThe new trade center must meet our need
for a powerful memorial, a vibrant streetscape,
and a brilliant skyline. Luckily, we have plans that […]
In BriefIn the late seventies and early eighties, with old-guard modernism apparently exhausted and design fashionistas throwing cornice lines around li […]
A Big ZeroThe proposals for the Twin Towers site dishonor the dead – and the living.
Ramping It UpFor its temporary Queens outpost in an old staple factory, MoMA turned to an architect who
thinks in terms of movement – but his people-friend […]
Site UnseenGround zero demands visionary planning for all of lower Manhattan, yet for the Port Authority, it’s business as usual.
Forum and FunctionRaimund Abraham, our resident architectural mystic, pierces midtown’s blandness with a home for the Austrian Cultural Forum that’s as confrontat […]
Bearish on Mad Ave.Skidmore Owings & Merrill has produced some of the city’s sleekest skyscrapers, but its Bear Stearns headquarters is a throwback to an era when […]
Acing the DeuceFox & Fowle transformed 42nd Street by defying convention with exuberant Times Square towers for Condé Nast and Reuters; visionary architec […]
Medium: KoolThree new downtown shops epitomize the mutation of shopping into cultural event, none more so than Rem Koolhaas’s spectacular new Prada store in […]
In BriefMOMA, the vatican of modernism, was supposed to cut the architectural edge with its new building on 53rd Street, but instead, the blandissimo de […]
Open AdmissionsWith his elegant Baruch College campus center, William Pedersen attacks the isolation of tall buildings; Scholastic’s new SoHo HQ is anything bu […]
Fixing the WholeWhile thinking about how to honor the Trade Center dead, we can also think boldly about making all of downtown a newly vibrant place for the living.
Clipped WingsIs the Port Authority’s new plan to save Eero Saarinen’s soaring TWA terminal little more than death by preservation?
Working the AnglesPhilip Johnson may be the past half-century’s greatest architectural channeler, though in his dotage he’s been channeling no one more than himself.
Just Add WaterWith kayaks dodging ferries, and sunbathers lounging on new piers (we’ll show you where), the waters around New York have never been more inviti […]
Mies’s PiecesShows at the Whitney and MoMA trace the career and influence of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe – but for context, look elsewhere.
Mies’s PiecesShows at the Whitney and MoMA trace the career and influence of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe – but for context, look elsewhere.
Franks, a LotFrank Lloyd Wright’s Guggenheim offers both a context and a critique of Frank Gehry’s evolution into the compleat architect.
Fashion StatementThe Cooper-Hewitt’s new director, a Brit with impeccable taste, would go beyond eccentric design shows into the big leagues of his Museum Mile […]
In BriefWhen he was building the Museum of Non-Objective Painting for Solomon Guggenheim, Frank Lloyd Wright’s private little chuckle was to spend earni […]
In BriefOne way to measure the success of a design show is to count the number of things you want to take home.
Ahead of the CurvesCritics scoffed at Morris Lapidus’s Fontainebleau and Summit hotels, but actual people loved their swoops and angles.
Design For WorkingMoMA looks at the evolution of the workspace in the digital age and finds the human desire for light and air usurped by the darker needs of com […]
The ‘X’ MenA proposal to have New York host the 2012 Olympics is terrifically ambitious in its use of the entire city. So why is the initial architectural […]
Public AccessPart of Pat Moynihan’s legacy is his championing of public spaces – and it’s one aspect of her new job to which Senator-elect Clinton brings re […]
Lost in SpaceThe skyscraper that Frank Gehry and David Childs designed for the Times dramatically transformed the culture within the corporate box. Or would have.
Seat HappensSome chairs in “Furnishing the Modern Era” haven’t a leg to stand on, but that’s the charm of a show about the humblest of objects.
The Great GadflyAlexander Girard splashed the gray face of postwar minimalism with a riot of color and infused modernist intellectual design with the giddy warm […]
Ardor in the CourtRichard Meier’s expansive, light-suffused design for the U.S. Courthouse in Islip is as passionate about modernism as it is about democracy itself.
Liquid AssetsA stolid pedestrian ramp at the NYSE is transformed with the luminous fluidity of a data stream; wrong turn at the Crossroads of the World.
The Inn CrowdFour new name-brand hotels reveal – for better or worse – the influence of boutique design on the mainstream; the new show at P.S. 1 is a scre […]
Most of That JazzSkidmore, Owings & Merrill finally offers a plan for Columbus Circle that emboldens one of the city’s great intersections – but does it go […]
