architecture

Why a Long-Maligned Housing Style Endures in Leeds

Once a progressive improvement on court-style housing in working class neighborhoods, then disfavored as cramped and lacking in privacy, urbanists look to Leeds's back-to-back rowhouses as a guide to more efficient and affordable housing for modern cities. 

Review: The Architecture of Despair

A Belgian poet took on a morbid project: a book about 13 buildings that, as matters of fact or fable, drove their architects to suicide. 

Landmark Building Embodies Past and Present of DC's Black Community

The True Reformer Building in Washington is likely the first in the nation to be designed, funded, built and owned by African Americans as part of a comprehensive mission of economic and social self-reliance and uplift in the early 20th century. 

The Architecture of the Shopping Mall Shaped by Racism, Surveillance

The architects who envisioned early shopping malls as common spaces were overwhelmed by the imperatives of exclusion and surveillance in spaces made safe for mass consumption, argues architecture critic Alexandra Lange. 

A Texas-Born Princess and Former Scandalous Washington Wife May Lose Roman Villa in Epic Inheritance Fight

Princess Rita Boncompagni-Ludovisi, born Rita Carpenter, the former wife of Congressman John Jenrette, has worked for 19 years to make Rome's Villa Aurora accessible to scholars. 

France Approves Controversial Notre-Dame Renovations; Conservatives Call it "Politically Correct"

Father Gilles Drouin argues that “the cathedral has always been open to art from the contemporary period."

How the Chicago Fire Changed the City's Architecture

Chicago-based historians D. Bradford Hunt and Dominic Pacyga argue that the Great Fire of 1871 did impact the city by inaugurating an age of big renewal plans, as well as through the city's prized architecture and parks. 

Remembering Minoru Yamasaki’s Twin Towers

"That two of Yamasaki’s major buildings would end up as rubble, one by politics, one by terrorists, seemed like the last word. And yet critics’ and historians’ views of the towers, as well as views of Yamasaki’s reputation, have also undergone a series of transformations."

The Rebuilt Berlin Palace Embodies the Tensions of the City's History and Future

by Barney White-Spunner

While Berliners have incorporated the city's notorious wall into museums and public art, restoring the site of the Berliner Schloss of the Hohenzollerns and then the Palast der Republic of the East German government has been much more contentious. The Humboldt Forum has been criticized, but its design and reception exemplify the tensions inherent in democracy.

What 19th-Century Domestic Manuals Say about Housing as Infrastructure

by Leah Marie Becker

"We are only as safe as the person breathing the most polluted air or with the least access to stable housing."

East Village Fire Damages 128-Year-Old Church

Middle Collegiate Church was a beacon of inclusion and tolerance for its congregants and the surrounding community. The damaged building was 128 years old, but the congregation originated before the American Revolution. 

Artists Ask MoMA to Remove Philip Johnson’s Name, Citing Racist Views

A group of more than 30 artists and academics have signed a letter asking institutions like the Museum of Modern Art to excise the influential architect’s name from their spaces.

The Legacy Of Tunney Lee: Preserving The History Of Boston's Chinatown

An interdisciplinary panel of scholars discusses the contributions of the late MIT urban studies professor Tunney Lee to historic preservation and the relationship of immigrant communities to urban environments.

Hidden in Plain Sight: The Ghosts of Segregation

Journalist and photographer Richard Frishman examines traces of segregation and racial exclusion in the built environment of the US.

Trumpania, U.S.A.: Making Federal Buildings Fascist Again

by Ed Simon

Trump's obsession with establishing neoclassical architecture as the default style for federal buildings echoes the delusional plan of Adolf Hitler to rebuild bombed Berlin in a monumental style purged of "decadent" modernism. 

History and Gentrification Clash in a Gilded Age Resort

A proposal to redevelop a section of Newport, Rhode Island far from the city's typical tourist destinations has generated an unlikely alliance of low-income residents who fear displacement and affluent historic preservation advocates. 

The Proud City: Patrick Abercrombie's Unfulfilled Plan for Rebuilding London

by Simon Jenkins

In 1942, the British government endorsed a plan that turned the Blitz into an opportunity for massive centrally-planned rebuilding of London. This was a break from the previous anarchic pattern of development, and, for better or worse, today's eclectic metropolis owes its form to the failure of the plan. 

Want to Flee the City for Suburbia? Think Again

The 20th century offers object lessons in why fleeing cities for suburban and exurban settings can backfire — even if it seems like a good idea at first.

New York Opens Traffic-Clogged Streets to People During Pandemic, the City’s Latest Redesign in Times of Dramatic Change

by Amy D. Finstein

The COVID-19 pandemic presents large cities with an opportunity to remake public space around different priorities, putting people before automobiles. 

The Cold War New and Old: Architectural Exchanges Beyond the West

by Łukasz Stanek

Until today, many urban landscapes in West Africa bear witness to how local authorities and professionals drew on Soviet prefabrication technology, Hungarian and Polish planning methods, Yugoslav and Bulgarian construction materials, Romanian and East German standard designs, and manual laborers from across Eastern Europe.