Mark Lamster

Mark Lamster|Essays

The Art of Diplomacy

It's a rather satisfying bit of parallelism that the excerpt of my book on the political career of Peter Paul Rubens appears in the Wall Street Journal on the same day that Barack Obama's Nobel Peace Prize is the …

Mark Lamster|Essays

A Bibliophile's Revelation

Domenichino's St. John the Evangelist seems, as much as anything, a celebration of the act of writing and the ecstasy of the written word. 

Mark Lamster|Essays

Tiepolo Pink

I'm happy and honored to report that Master of Shadows has been named an Indie Next Notable Book for November by IndieBound.

Mark Lamster|Essays

We Regret to Inform You That Love Will Not Save the Day

The big story on East 7th Street these days is the opening of Thom Mayne's new student center for Cooper Union, on Third Avenue.

Mark Lamster|Essays

Ron Arad at MoMA

I'm not sold on Arad as an architect, but his material experimentation is certainly admirable

Mark Lamster|Essays

People of the Book

I'll be participating in my first event to celebrate the publication of Master of Shadows on October 6th, here in New York City.

Mark Lamster|Essays

Underground Architects

The one question people often ask that I don't enjoy answering is, "Who's your favorite architect?"

Mark Lamster|Essays

Fire at Rubens's St. Charles Borromeo

An electrical fire has done severe damage to the interior of Antwerp's St. Charles Borromeo.

Mark Lamster|Essays

The Lion of Belgium

In the history of strange maps, this image of Belgium as a lion, printed in 1611 by cartographer Jodicus Hondius of Amsterdam, is surely a classic

Mark Lamster|Essays

The Om in Home: Kripalu's New Dorm

I'm not a big yoga fan, and always looked at the Kripalu Yoga Center, in Lenox, with a fair degree of skepticism.

Mark Lamster|Essays

Auto-Matic Abstraction

With their zippy vertical lines, these pictures I shot out of a car window remind me of Barney Newman.

Mark Lamster|Essays

Rough-Cut Redux: Amazon Makes A Change We Can Believe In

Last week, I noted the strange appearance of the all-capped phrase "ROUGH-CUT EDGE" displayed adjacent to the title of my book on Amazon.com.