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Architecture and Popular Taste
Places Journal
Douglas Haskell was a leading figure in 20th-century design journalism. His work deserves to be better known.
The Association of (Gay) Suburban People
Places Journal
From the late ’70s to mid ’80s, in an era of entrenched homophobia, a group of gay suburbanites formed an organization that mixed pride and defiance, political rallies and Tupperware parties.
Notes Toward a History of Non-Planning
Places Journal
The argument about the strength of government and the freedom of the marketplace has been boiling for decades. It is more relevant than ever.
Fabrications
Places Journal
Reality and unreality blend in the work of two artists who regard architecture as conjecture — half built, half imagined, teetering between proof and illusion.
Speculative Archaeology
Places Journal
Faux-ethnographic dioramas, modern interiors reimagined as psychedelic ruin-worlds, invented histories of proto-architecture: archaeology, as model or metaphor, has been surfacing a lot in art practice and design theory.
From Architecture to Landscape
Places Journal
Landscape architects have begun to venture from the confines of garden, park, and plaza into more adventurous practice. Now the field needs a new name: landscape science.
Unforgetting Women Architects
Places Journal
It’s time to write women architects back into the history of architecture — starting with Wikipedia.
Our Invisible Presence
Places Journal
Our most important interactions with landscape leave traces that cannot be contained within the photographic frame.
How to Be an Architecture Critic
Places Journal
We’re surrounded by buildings, but do we know how to talk about them?
TEDification versus Edification
Places Journal
The magical thinking and many contradictions of the TED Talks — and the implicit threats to design and education.
Housing and the Cooperative Commonwealth
Places Journal
In America we have an escalating crisis of housing affordability — yet we are overlooking one of the best and most basic solutions.
The Social Project
Places Journal
On the complex architectural and social legacy of postwar public housing in the banlieues that ring contemporary Paris.
“The Spectacle of Growth”
Places Journal
The São Paulo Architecture Biennial examines the wave of economic and urban development reshaping Brazil.
The Snow Queen
Places Journal
Roses, knives, ice splinters, and a flurry of white bees. A fairy tale that transfixes and confuses children like no other can.
A Tiny Orchestra in the Living Room
Places Journal
The introduction of stereophonic sound systems, in the postwar decades, transformed the American house.
Imperial Traces
Places Journal
The record of the former French colonies is controversial. But it is also rich with narratives, and with built relics — villas, hotels, prisons, slaughterhouses, orphaned by history.
Regionalism Revisited: The Case of Francisco Artigas
Places Journal
In the mid 20th century, Francisco Artigas was one of the best known architects in Mexico. Today he is largely unknown. It’s time for a fresh look.
A Building, Not a Colt Revolver
Places Journal
From prehistoric cliff dwellings to recent projects by Morphosis and Herzog & de Meuron, the question of how a building should relate to its site offers no easy or universal answer.
Jack and the Beanstalk
Places Journal
What comes of Jack’s magical beanstalk? Usually, at the end, it’s cut down.
Rapunzel
Places Journal
Is Rapunzel’s tower an enchanted, magical home or a dreadful prison from which to escape?
Halloween Edition
Places Journal
A design for the Grimm Brothers’ “The Boy Who Set Forth to Learn What Fear Was.”
The Library of Babel
Places Journal
The space is infinite, the rooms are hexagons, the staircases are hexagons — and the story is terrifying.
The Juniper Tree
Places Journal
What’s a mother to do? She decapitates the boy with the heavy metal lid of an apple chest.
The House on Chicken Feet
Places Journal
A design for the hut of the Russian witch Baba Yaga, who flies in a huge mortar, using the the pestle as a rudder.
Snowflake
Places Journal
The story begins when a childless couple build a daughter from the snow; the ending is at once cold and sublime.
The Little Match Girl
Places Journal
A young girl is sent out by her parents to sell matches on a winter’s eve; thus begins Hans Christian Anderson’s harrowing tale.
Monkey King
Places Journal
A Monkey King born from a stone can transform into 72 other things: bug, bird, beast of prey, tree and so forth.
Why the Sun and Moon Live in the Sky
Places Journal
A suicidal moon, a rope, and the love of two siblings: blueprint for a fairy-tale scene.