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 »

She is not the only architect to see her work as a force for social justice, but she is one of the few to pursue graduate work in public policy to improve the interactions of designers and the officials who can make their visions a reality. A conversation at the Center for Architecture with the … Continue reading »

He is a co-founder of KPF, architects of buildings worldwide, including One Vanderbilt, rising near Grand Central. “It’s very tall at over 1,400 feet, but it’s not the tallest building in New York, and we weren’t trying to make it the tallest,” he told the Center for Architecture. “We didn’t want to get into a … Continue reading »

She’s created graphic identities for Citibank, Tiffany, the Public Theater, and, well, everybody, but will be remembered for one album cover, she tells the Museum of Arts and Design. “It was dumb; it was a dumb idea; the whole thing was dumb.” The triumphs and discontents of a great designer. Music: Piedmont Bluz. Continue reading »

Trained as an engineer and architect, she is the president of Pratt Institute and offers this precept: “If I didn’t do something really bad or evil, then it was a good design.” Practice and pedagogy at the Center for Architecture. Music: Cleek Schrey. Continue reading »

His 60 years as an architect (the Rose Center at the Museum of Natural History, the Clinton presidential library) and dean of Columbia’s graduate school of architecture brought him to this modest conclusion: “It’s not a high art; it is really a craft.” A conversation at the Center for Architecture. Music: Caitlan Warbelow. Photo: Harry … Continue reading »

This cultural historian regards Coco Chanel as a titan of fashion but notes, “Like Picasso or Wagner, she was really really brilliant and just an absolutely despicable human being.” Anti-Semite, union-buster, Nazi spy: when great artists are bad people. Plus music from Eléonore Weill and Ali Dineen.  Photo credit: ©2019 The Museum at FIT Continue reading »

The designer of widely-used typefaces, including Surveyor, Tungsten, and Retina, he draws on the history of his native Brooklyn: old subway signs, old newspapers. More surprising, his fonts are also inspired by Walt Whitman. A conversation at the New York Transit Museum. Music from Rahiem and Amiri Taylor.  Continue reading »