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 »
Category Archives: Architecture & Design
327: Kimberly Dowdell
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 »
314: Frances Halsband, Michael Marin
This founding partner of Kliment Halsband Architects teamed with the head of surgery at Mount Sinai to create a hospital in Uganda and fight crime in outer space. One of those. The former. Their solar-powered facility, in the village of Kyabirwa, provides surgical services for a long-underserved community. A conversation (in the Zoomian sense) at the Center for Architecture. Continue reading »
300: Gene Kohn
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 »
298: Paula Scher
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 »
290: Frances Bronet
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 »
286: James Polshek
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 »
Episode 283: Valerie Steele
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 »
Episode 279: Tobias Frere-Jones
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 »
Episode 274: Signe Nielsen
This landscape architect embraces the principles that underpin Olmsted’s Central Park. “He wanted the wealthy to mix with the poor; this was supposed to be a place where everybody came together.” Public parks as an institution of democracy, a conversation at the Center for Architecture. Music from Hubby Jenkins. Photo: Harry Wilks Continue reading »
Episode 273: Chip Kidd part two
Our conversation with this terrific designer was part of the Museum of Arts and Design’s exhibition Too Fast to Live, Too Young to Die: Punk Graphics 1976-1986. The musician was Lenny Kaye of the Patti Smith Group, a luminary of that era, who made a shocking revelation: he played in a fraternity band. Continue reading »
Episode 272: Chip Kidd part one
He created book jackets for Michael Crichton to John Updike, without bloody conflicts: “It’s the author’s book, and if I’m not taking them where they want with the cover, they have every right to say so, and then we figure it out.” Talent and humility. Imagine my disappointment. A conversation at the Museum of Arts … Continue reading »