No first glimpse of a building was more exhilarating to me than his 1975 Best Products facade in Houston, designed with his firm, SITE. And he did it the old-fashioned way: “I’m probably the last architect on earth who still draws by hand.” Ideas and how they get that way, presented with the National Academy … Continue reading »

These architects, partners in life and work, are interested in how other couples manage that duality, particularly Michelle and Barack Obama, with whom they worked to design his Presidential Center. Good times at the Center for Architecture. Music: Stephanie Jenkins. Photo: Harry Wilks. Continue reading »

This graphic artist, a cofounder of Champions Design—clients include Apple, the NBA, the Girl Scouts—traces his love for design to the baseball cards and comic books of his childhood. “I’ve been surrounded by these little gems all my life.” Produced with the Type Directors Club. Continue reading »

“I have no interest in completing projects,” says this architect, winner of the Pritzker Prize. “A lot of our stuff just keeps moving; it refuses to have an edge, a boundary; it’s in constant change.” For someone who feels that way, he’s completed an awful lot of them, and to great acclaim. Presented with the … Continue reading »

She heads New York City’s Landmarks Preservation Commission, safeguarding 36,000 buildings. She loves them all, of course, but one material has a special claim on her heart. “We have terra cotta everywhere in this city, architectural terra cotta. It’s structural, it’s non-structural, it’s ornamental.” That fabulous clay, that magical goo, that stuff that makes Manhattan. … Continue reading »

This terrific graphic designer loves, without nostalgia, the world of print magazines where she began. She cautions her students, denizens of the online realm, “Everything looks cool on screen.” Her prescription: “Buy a printer, buy a printer, buy a printer.” The seductive deceptions of the digital, the bracing revelations of the physical. Presented with the … Continue reading »

She is as sophisticated as any architect working today, as her glorious Aqua Tower attests, yet she still learns from birds. “Not to build a building that looks like a nest but to consider what’s available, what is nearby, what could be put to use.” She’s also learned from Marcus Aurelius, although he was not capable of … Continue reading »

She is a fashion designer whose work is in the permanent collection of London’s Victoria and Albert Museum and New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. Her guiding precept: “I just like the clothes to be useful, you know? That’s really the basic thing.” What I could use is pants that cook my dinner, but I’m not … Continue reading »

When he was a boy, his great-uncle Buckminster Fuller often came to the house. “He would clear his throat halfway through dinner, then stand up and talk for three hours.” When Marvel was a young man, he stayed in Isamu Noguchi’s studio. “In return for living there, I cooked for him on Sundays.” (As a … Continue reading »

He’s created buildings from Montreal (Habitat 67) to Singapore (Jewel Changi Airport), but Jerusalem — the center of three Abrahamic religions, where people have lived for 6,000 years – is different: “It takes an act of real arrogance to build in a city like that. It was quite emotionally wrenching.” Presented by the Center for … Continue reading »

He is a founding partner of COOKFOX Architects, known for green buildings, including the Bank of America Tower at One Bryant Park, and the Stephen Sondheim Theatre. During our conversation he said, “Hope doesn’t disappoint.” He also said, “stinking, rotting, flaming, sliding, hell on earth.” Something for everyone, via the Center for Architecture. Continue reading »

He is a Pulitzer-winning architecture critic whose most recent book is Ballpark: Baseball in the American City. My favorite of his least recent books is The City Observed: New York — a lovely blend of the scholarly and the personal. Hosted by the Center for Architecture. Continue reading »