Christopher Wool on What Brought a ‘Sunday Painter’ Back to Life
“I had been on the treadmill for so long. And then suddenly I felt like I could just be an artist again,” he says. His long obsession with photo books
Postcard from La Jolla
La Jolla has some of the best architecture in the country and some of the worst. Louis Kahn’s Salk Institute commands a cliff like few others. Irving Gill, who was
The Renovated and Expanded Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego Has a Complicated Relationship With Its History
Critic Mimi Zeiger finds beauty and serenity in Selldorf Architects’ new cultural project, but misses much of its building’s accumulated quirk and soul.
Fleur Cowles and the Making of Flair, History’s Most Beautiful Magazine
Wild risks, a blank checkbook, and one impossibly fabulous editor.
Wandering Through Uber HQ’s Secret Garden
Landscape architects Surfacedesign have created a surprisingly calming retreat for employees—and the public—tucked between the tech giant’s glassy new San Francisco buildings.
Mysteriously Handcuffed to History
MoMA’s exhibition on architectures of decolonization in South Asia is problematic but timely, a much-needed catalyst for the preservation of valuable mid-century buildings.
The Imperative of Ending Coerced Student Labor
A reckoning with faculty misconduct at SCI-Arc shows the need for deeper change in the industry.
Every Brand Is a Climate Brand These Days, and That’s Terrible For the Environment
Amid a sea of dubious climate messaging and images, can design find visual languages for the climate crisis that leads to real action?
An Exhibition and Book Give Different Perspectives of Potter Edith Heath
At the Oakland Museum of California, Edith Heath: A Life in Clay, coincides with a new book on her, providing varying viewpoints on one of the most influential ceramics designers
MoMA exhibition on building and decolonization in South Asia raises questions about the authentically hopeful architecture of nation-building
The Project of Independence, now open at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), is steeped in longing for a return to a more hopeful time when architects made nation-states.
Interview: Carson Chan on Climate Crisis and the Challenge of the Architectural Canon
For curator, writer, and educator Carson Chan, architecture’s impact on the environment is not simply a question of how buildings produce greenhouse gases.
Building the Corporate Menace of Severance
Saarinen’s impeccable Bell Labs campus conveys the terror of utopian office design.
Searching for What Connects Us, Carlo Rovelli Explores Beyond Physics
The physicist ranges widely — from black holes to Buddhism to climate change — in his new book, “There Are Places in the World Where Rules Are Less Important Than
The Sisterly Collusion Behind Vanessa Bell’s Book Covers for Virginia Woolf
Woolf’s dust jackets were “universally condemned amongst booksellers.” So why did she continue to let her sister design them?
What happens if Ukraine’s historic buildings are destroyed
Ukraine’s UNESCO sites date back to the 11th century. If they’re destroyed, they can be rebuilt but never replaced.
Postcard from 1972
Like a lot of folks my age I seem to receive the magazine of the American Association of Retired People. Now that I am “rewired” I occasionally open it. I