Article Archive
London has its Thames Barrier. Dutch cities are fortified for the 10,000-year storm. Now America is facing its soggy future as architects and ecologists grapple with a hybrid of structure and landscape called aquatecture—a new, blue wave of sustainable urban design.
The Architect's Newspaper, 19 March 2008
I, Robot
Builders of the future, get your robot on. On the not-too-distant horizon machines are tooling up to mill, drill, and build otherworldly new forms.
The Architect's Newspaper, 5 December 2007
Delirious Newark
Flush with civic ambition, a gargantuan new arena, and fresh planning talent, Mayor Cory Booker is betting big on this long-struggling city's future.
The Architect's Newspaper, 17 October 2007
Rising Up Against Teardowns
Got serendipity? Check. Mettle? Check. You’ll need ’em to save a cherished piece of history in metro New York City, where old buildings are being bulldozed to make room for newer, bigger homes.
The New York Times, 16 July 2006
After Nature
The Darth Vader of traditional architecture—leader of a backward-looking empire pitted against modernism’s flight to the future (Frank Gehry as Luke Skywalker?)—Christopher Alexander may be the world’s most dangerous architect.
The Village Voice, 24 May 2006
Amid the Facades, Furrowed Brows
Real-estate roulette and a booming population have put the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission in the middle of a land-use maelstrom.
The New York Times, 19 March 2006
Romance of the Wrecking Ball
When Pennsylvania Station met its sorry end 42 years ago, Ralph Stephenson, a counterman at Savarin restaurant, wryly marked the moment. “This city’s got the right name -- New York,” he said. “Nothing ever gets old around here.”
The New York Times, 22 January 2006
Disappeared Detroit
True to form in the Motor City—mythic land of the annual new model—Detroiters got a head start on the coming century as the rubble met the road.
LOST Magazine, January 2006
Let Libeskind Be Libeskind
Daniel Libeskind’s got Itzhak Perlman in his past. He’s got the gestapo on his mind, a Jabberwock in his pocket. And—dare we say it?—dude’s got mojo.
The Village Voice, 19 October 2004
Gut Feelings
There are no entrails in Paris. Guts, innards, sweetbreads—they’re all gone, by municipal fiat. I’m not talking a plate of haggis over at some boîte in Montmartre, either. I’m talking vast, redolent, gobsmacking entrails. Viands, man. By the kilo.
The Village Voice, 10 May 2004
Everything Falls Apart
Of all the screwball architectural passions—gingerbread-house fetishes, say, or the mania, in the suburbs, for turreted tilt-wall chateaux—surely none are more feral than the hankering for heaps of broken stone.
The Believer, June 2003
Maps and Chaps
Kropotkin was a geographer? You betcha. Practicing a rowdy cultural politics and sizing up space through a neo-Marxist lens, the New Geography takes a hard left turn.
The Village Voice, 1 August 2001
Tales of the Kefir Furnaceman
On a frigid February morning in 1985, Berkeley sociologist Michael Burawoy punched in at Hungary’s Lenin Steel Works and came belly-to-brimstone with the flame-belching maw of an 80-ton furnace. Don’t even ask about the slag drawer.
The Village Voice, 11 April 2001
Dialectical U
Fortysomethings on campus are wedding old-school critique with new-school chops. “My generation can have its foot in both camps,” says geographer Andy Merrifield. “We read Capital, but also understand the need to put bricks through Starbucks’ windows.”
The Village Voice, 17 January 2001
