Future Archive

Once a formidable critic and teacher, and now largely forgotten, Sibyl Moholy-Nagy deserves new attention.

Douglas Haskell was a leading figure in 20th-century design journalism. His work deserves to be better known.

Vincent Scully has long been one of our leading architectural historians, and one of the most confident and audacious. Even when wrong he was stirringly, scintillatingly wrong.

Reyner Banham was not only an extraordinary scholar but also a prodigiously productive journalist. Consider his remarkable analysis of a legendary crash-test dummy.

Grady Clay was a prodigious observer of American cities and landscapes, dedicated to cutting through the overlay of conventional ideas that so often crowds out original thinking.

Half a century ago Charles Moore was a rising architect and Ivy League academic. He was also the first in the field to look seriously at Disneyland — and he liked what he saw.

Robin Boyd was the most famous architecture critic Australia ever produced. In a still relevant essay from 1968, he calls for architects to cast aside their perennial political timidity.

Josef Frank’s humanist manifesto “Accidentism” denounced the banality of orthodox modernism and called for a new pluralism in design.

Decades ago Catherine Bauer argued passionately that governments must ensure that all citizens are well housed — a call to action more vital than ever as our shelter crisis deepens.

Decades ago Lewis Mumford argued passionately that Jerusalem should become a world city, both de-politicized and de-nationalized. His argument remains powerful and problematic.

J.B. Jackson’s 1976 essay on the evolution of the American garage displays his rare ability to combine deep erudition with eloquent and plainspoken analysis.

In its original concept, the Appalachian Trail was more than a hiking path. It was a wildly ambitious plan to reorganize the economic geography of the eastern United States.

In the throes of Haussmannization in Paris, novelist George Sand argued passionately that everyone deserves public spaces that are not only safe and welcoming but also beautiful.

Robert C. Weaver was a central figure in the 20th-century battles for housing justice and civil rights in the United States. His life and legacy deserve to be better known.