I have a file somewhere on my computer where I keep what I call Page 10 Gems — single sentences, usually from the New York Times, buried deep in section A, or even deeper, that hit at something truer, and more powerful, than even the most timely news can aim for. The best so far: “New York City history, a force so cruel and monolithic that the mightiest are left to froth like sea spume in its wake.” (Curious? It’s here.) Read More »

Amid the usual “clean” (despite all the scuff marks) white modernism at International Contemporary Furniture Fair this year was a new trend I’ll call woodwashing. It’s basically 1970s rustic den meets 2000s eco-luxe. We’re taking shelter from a torn-up world in a time when — we imagine — things weren’t so bad. Hence all the Victorian era–themed restaurants out there and the ubiquitous hunting lodge deer antlers of a few years ago. This year, we reached the apex, surrounding ourselves with so much lumber (“warm” is 2009′s design buzzword, replacing “sleek”) that ICFF looked like a Home Depot back lot. Read More »

Last week, the American Institute of Architects came to rainy San Francisco. Their convention is an annual meet-up of American architects to gossip, pass out business cards, get drunk, and do what architects do best: inflate futurist ideas and bounce them at each other like beach balls. It was rendering one-upmanship, and totally entertaining. Read More »

Architecture infuses our lives — subtly and not so subtly — with emotions, ideas, splendor, and stress all the time. It’s only fitting it does the same in great movies. After the jump are eight classic films where the buildings are more than a backdrop. Which ones are we forgetting? You know what to do. Read More »

It’s hard to be an architect in the UK, where as far as Prince Charles is concerned, all architecture since 1700 — lumped together as “modern,” a word as uselessly vague in describing architecture as it is in describing art — should never have been built. Good ol’ Carbuncle Charlie announced his position in 1984 in a now infamous speech at Hampton Court. From the 17th-century hall designed by Sir Christopher Wren (of St. Paul’s fame) Prince Charles spat at a proposed addition to the National Gallery, calling it a “monstrous carbuncle.” Since then, he’s called the British Library a secret police academy, the National Theatre a nuclear power station, and pretty much all new development in the city “not just one carbuncle on the face of a much-loved friend, but a positive rash of them that will disfigure precious views and disinherit future generations of Londoners.” Mumbai slums, he said, “provide a better model for housing a booming urban population in the developing world than western architecture.” Read More »

We take a lot of crap for granted, but why should we? Designers get paid millions to tinker with brand logos while umbrellas around the world keep getting blown inside out — isn’t it about time we tackled life’s more pressing (or at least more annoying) problems? Herewith, a run-down of some of our design pet peeves. Add gripes of your own, but if you have a solution you better start fixing it instead of wasting your time commenting on blogs! Read More »

This week: a bit of a love song. But who can help it? It’s spring. The weather’s been warming and rain’s been waking up the dirt, and if you’re a New York love/hater, that means it’s time to plant. Yes, they remind us how painful it can be to live in a city, and how measly our connection is with things that grow, but on a perfect spring day, community gardens are one of the best things about New York. Read More »

Yesterday the architecture world’s Preacherman, Jonathan Glancey, weighed in on the “what is good design” debate. Glancey — architecture critic for the Guardian — is fed up with computers, dammit. “Many of our new buildings and streetscapes feel increasingly digital rather than real,” he wrote on Building Design. It’s an argument people have been making for years — and it’s wrong. Read More »

Get your architecture-appreciating, pizza-hungry ass on Metro North and get out of town for a day. Why? New Haven is contemplative architecture at its best. From Louis Kahn’s quiet monuments to those ivy covered colleges, colonial churches to the most beautiful parking garage you’ll ever see, this is the antidote for New York’s flashy glass condos and scene-stealing skyscrapers. Plus, New Haven’s pizza is way better.

Click here for a slideshow of New Haven’s best>>

American design — misunderstood, criticized, ill-defined, resented — has a savior: the American Design Club. Waving their turkey-emblazoned banner high, the AmDC (Kiel Mead, Simon Arizpe, Annie Lenon, Henry Juiler, Theo Richardson, Alex Williams, and Charles Brill) champion stateside design in all its nuances with curated shows of the country’s best up-and-coming talent. It’s more than Brooklyn craft, it’s more than industrial neo-modernism, it’s more than green, it’s more than wit — American design is an expansive, sometimes unwieldy beast, and the AmDC likes it that way. Still, to add a little order to things and maybe spark some unexpected creativity, the AmDC themes all their shows. The last (the inaugural) was based on the great outdoors; this one, on color. “Hue Are You?” opens on Friday at The Future Perfect in Williamsburg. After the jump we talk to Kiel Mead, one of the founders, about what to expect.

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