Articles
Reviews
Theory’s Curriculum by Joseph Bedford (ed.). The Architecture Exchange, 166 pp., $10.
To many observers, theory in architecture persists only in a zombified form. Some aren’t so sure.
Set the Night on Fire L.A. in the Sixties by Mike Davis and Jon Wiener. Verso, 800 pp., $25
We can’t wait around for a spark, Mike Davis always seemed to be saying.
The Lives of Others: Sublime Interiors of Extraordinary People, Rizzoli, 2020.
Private Views: A High-Rise Panorama of Manhattan, VI PER Gallery, Prague, 2021.
Whether minimalist or maximalist, the designer-y vessels of luxe living are little but financial instruments.
Reconstructions: Architecture and Blackness in America was on view at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, from February 27 to May 31, 2021.
In wishing to communicate the totality of Blackness, Reconstructions forgoes the tools and signifiers of conventional architectural production in favor of world building.
Unlike the trains now operating at austerity levels of service, Moynihan Train Hall has arrived exactly on time, ready to uplift.
BIG. Formgiving. An Architectural Future History by Bjarke Ingels Group. Taschen, 736 pp., $50
Bjarke Ingels’s further adventures in technological determinism
Two Sides of the Border Reimagining the Region edited by Tatiana Bilbao, Ayesha S. Ghosh, and Nile Greenberg. Lars Müller Publishers, 488 pp., $35
We’re accustomed to thinking about the US-Mexico border as an abstraction. A new book tries to find intimacy in it.
University of Virginia Memorial to Enslaved Laborers
Walking toward its rising and falling wall, the memorial appears understated, generously inviting life to register against it.
Cyclescapes of the Unequal City: Bicycle Infrastructure and Uneven Development by John G. Stehlin. University of Minnesota Press, $27
Not all cities have private bike share systems, but New York’s proudly bears the logo of a bank.
Unorthodox, Netflix, March 2020, 4 episodes
Heroics are for Speer, and “there are no heroes in music.”
Dogma, The Room of One’s Own, Milan: Black Square Press, 2017
Upon what possessions, relations, and places do we build stability in our lives?
Countryside, The Future, curated by Rem Koolhaas and Samir Bantal, was on view at the Guggenheim Museum from February 20, 2020, to February 15, 2021.
With Countryside, The Future, Rem Koolhaas and the Guggenheim offer a foie-gras approach of feeding the arts establishment uncomfortable, seemingly indigestible content.
Charleston Fancy: Little Houses and Big Dreams in the Holy City by Witold Rybczynski. Yale University Press, 256 pp., $21.
A predilection for Palladio, for Russian Orthodox churches, for vernacular architecture, for medieval urbanism, for counterculture development…
Lair: Radical Homes and Hideouts of Movie Villains by Chad Oppenheim and Andrea Gollin. Tra Publishing, 296 pp., $75.
Lairs are kingdoms for one, perfectly designed to each villain’s dystopian vision. Or utopian, depending on how you slice it.
Zachary Violette, The Decorated Tenement: How Immigrant Builders and Architects Transformed the Slum in the Gilded Age (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2019)
Zachary Violette’s insistence on the relevance of the norm over the exception leads to a more synchronic mode of analysis.