Why Cities Must Embrace Getting Smaller
The phrase “Demography is destiny” is repeated more than once in Smaller Cities in a Shrinking World (Island Press). This new book by noted urban researcher Alan Mallach tackles, in meticulous and fascinating detail, the “wicked problem” of shrinking cities in the U.S. and across the globe.
https://commonedge.org/why-cities-m…
California Scheming: Nine Unsolicited Design Ideas for the Secret City of Solano County
Investors have been vocal about their visions for the future—but silent about the actual city they’re funding. We asked a creative agency, an architecture firm and our own graphic designer to imagine it for them.
https://theinformation.com/articles…
Ed Ruscha’s Calmly Collapsing America
In “Now Then,” a sprawling retrospective at MOMA, the artist traces the rise and fall of a national language.
https://newyorker.com/magazine/2023…
Peter Zumthor on Paring Back a ‘Beautiful Idea’ for LACMA
The Swiss architect of one of the most polarizing museums in the country says his Los Angeles design has been significantly streamlined. So why have costs kept rising?
https://nytimes.com/2023/10/04/arts…
Ray Johnson’s Elusive Dream: ‘I Want to Dance’
The discovery of a group of early collages tells a new story about Johnson’s ties to dance and the dance world.
https://nytimes.com/2023/09/26/arts…
Apocalypse-Proof
A windowless telecommunications hub, 33 Thomas Street in New York City embodies an architecture of surveillance and paranoia. That has made it an ideal set for conspiracy thrillers.
https://placesjournal.org/article/3…
John Waters is ready for his Hollywood closeup
The director reflects on getting a star on the Walk of Fame and a museum retrospective about his career as a cinematic provocateur.
https://newyorker.com/culture/the-n…
To light, and then return— Edmund de Waal and Sally Mann
This fall, artists and friends Edmund de Waal and Sally Mann will exhibit new works together in New York.
https://gagosian.com/quarterly/2023…
A Novel That Links Climate Change and the Death of Salvador Allende
In Ariel Dorfman’s “The Suicide Museum,” a billionaire with a scheme to save the planet needs to know exactly what happened in the 1973 Chilean coup.
https://newyorker.com/magazine/2023…
What does midcentury modern even mean these says?
Auction houses, secondhand furniture stores, and realtors make small fortunes from a nomenclature that, despite the fuzziness surrounding its indeterminate span and whether everything made during its indefinite duration ought to be stamped with the same label, continues to demand attention.
https://commonedge.org/what-does-mi…
Can Helsinki’s modern architecture grow old gracefully?
The Helsinki skyline is startlingly low for a capital city, its further horizons determined by water and scattered wooded islands.
https://apollo-magazine.com/helsink…
Field Notes on Design Activism: 7
This is the seventh and final installment of a narrative survey in which several dozen educators and practitioners share perspectives on the intensifying demands for meaningful change across design pedagogy and practice.
https://placesjournal.org/article/f…
What Happens to the Workplace When the Workers Become the Bosses?
Employee-owned companies are a growing force in America. What lessons could they hold for workplace designers?
https://metropolismag.com/viewpoint…
In Praise of a Great Mentor: Working With Geoffrey Bawa
When I was an architecture student in 1980s Vienna, I stumbled into an experience so profound that it has guided my career and professional outlook to this day.
https://commonedge.org/in-praise-of…
Yes to Life, in Spite of Everything
Viktor Frankl’s lost lectures on moving beyond optimism and pessimism to find the deepest source of meaning.
https://themarginalian.org/2020/05/…
Painters’ paintings
From the archives: Brice Marden and Chris Ofili in conversation
https://artforum.com/print/200608/b…
Half of the Future Is Buried in the Past
The Laboratory of the Future, the Eighteenth International Architecture Exhibition of the Venice Architecture Biennale, is open through November 26.
https://nyra.nyc/articles/laborator…
Design Q&A: Industrial Facility
In designs ranging from chairs to a toilet brush, Industrial Facility forgoes a signature aesthetic in favor of long-term relationships and rigorous inquiry.
https://eamesinstitute.org/kazam-ma…
The Spiritual in Art: An Interview with Maurice Tuchman
Maurice Tuchman, LACMA’s first curator (1964–1993) of 20th century art, remains an outsized figure in the history of art in Los Angeles.
https://eastofborneo.org/articles/t…
Francisco Cantú Answers the Orion Questionnaire
In which we get to know our favorite writers better by exploring the sacred and mundane.
https://orionmagazine.org/article/f…
Spanish Twist
Spain has a rich yet relatively little-known legacy of Modernist architecture and design. The unique sculptural sensibility of its postwar interiors is particularly striking.
https://worldofinteriors.com/story/…
“Tight and small and figurative”: Tom Wesselmann’s early collages
Susan Davidson, editor of the forthcoming monograph on the Great American Nudes, a series of works by Tom Wesselmann, explores the artist’s early experiments with collage, tracing their development from humble beginnings to the iconic series of paintings.
https://gagosian.com/quarterly/2023…
How Larry Gagosian reshaped the art world
The dealer has been so successful selling art to masters of the universe that he has become one of them.
https://newyorker.com/magazine/2023…
Douglas Stuart Doesn’t Need 3 People at His Dream Dinner Party
“I regret that I never met Hilary Mantel,” says the Booker-winning Scottish novelist, whose most recent book, “Young Mungo,” is now out in paperback. “I would be delighted with three of her.”
https://nytimes.com/2023/07/06/book…
My life in the aftermath of Martin Luther King’s assassination
After my friend was killed, I considered taking up arms. But his legacy called me back to a different way of living.
https://newyorker.com/culture/perso…
Letter From Ljubljana, Slovenia: The Human-Centered Urbanism of Jože Plečnik
Recently I traveled to Ljubljana, Slovenia, in search of the religious architecture of the celebrated (but largely unknown in the U.S.) Slovenian architect Jože Plečnik (1872–1957).
https://commonedge.org/letter-from-…
