#33

Observations on New York’s sky-high columbaria of burnt money

In which a nascent futurist, seasoned operator, and master craftsman attends to his legends

Just as the theory that image-based feeds instigated the brutalism revival never quite checked out, neither does SOS Brutalism’s stated raison d’être.

On finding optimism at the Noguchi Museum

Nan Goldin wants to pump you up.

If nature takes its revenge but no one is around to witness it, will it be beautiful?

Blair Kamin’s “activism” is carefully modulated and deeply liberal in that it wants to preserve the status quo—in this case, a beautiful city skyline.

A pair of new books takes stock of Co-op City’s idealistic origins, brutal challenges, and lasting successes.

Architecture builds norms, and Radical Pedagogies’ project is to question the discipline’s fundamental assumptions.

For Edward Hopper, New York was a fount of sights that he never tired of seeing or, indeed, painting.

On the surprisingly enduring resonance of the shopping center

The Architecture of Disability uses the lens of disability to reevaluate received architectural histories and speculate on a more inclusive architectural environment.

Architecture is a succubus that extracts everything it can.

Finally, an art exhibition mercifully devoid of the weight of being a serious artist

A distinctly Canadian strain of parsimony

Trompe l’oeil—a crass parlor trick or a great advance in Western art?

Pelé’s sky-high forever home conforms to a strict football theme.

A green front yard won’t save you, but it’s still better than concrete.

There’s something astoundingly ironic about using cutting-edge technology to tell a story of native wisdom triumphing over techno-industrial will.

If you need more prairie in your life, go outside.

The incidental noise of domestic work is both mute and shackling.

Hope for revolutionary agency is invested in the fragmented forms of another time.

Without a Party, what is left other than trolling Dezeen?

A good-intentioned book channels a torrent of research and riffs into galaxy-brain takes.

Hard-nosed rationalism proves a poor prophylactic against sinuous human desire.

The high artifice and warm sensuality of it all tickle in a good way.

Try to parse the narrative layers that great wealth accrues around itself, and you’ll up dizzy fast.

As moralizing, The White Lotus is blithely hollow; as camp, it’s depressingly prurient.

On the too-muchness of “New York: 1962–1964”

It can be easy to forget that Fox News is a profoundly New York institution.

ChatGPT has no sensory organs, but it asserts that architecture is “a material and tactile experience.”

A plan to get post-pandemic New York back on track lacks imagination.

Our Catty Corner columnist ponders the war on cars.

The MTA thinks it can teach us something about beauty. Get outta here!