Between Buildings

We just watched Man on Wire, the Academy Award-winning documentary about Philippe Petit, the man who walked between the World Trade Center towers. The film is only so-so as a documentary, but Petit’s personality, the idea of the wire walk as art form and the stunning images of his three major walks in Paris, Sydney and New York are not to be missed. The best moment architecturally was when he sketches those walks on a piece of exposed drywall at the under-construction WTC. In that moment you see the way he looks at architecture. For him, Notre Dame, the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the WTC are the same thing. I have always know that people see buildings differently, but this was a wonderful snapshot of Petit’s form of architecture criticism.

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By Alexandra Lange

Alexandra Lange is an architecture critic and author, and the 2025 Pulitzer Prize winner for Criticism, awarded for her work as a contributing writer for Bloomberg CityLab. She is currently the architecture critic for Curbed and has written extensively for Design Observer, Architect, New York Magazine, and The New York Times. Lange holds a PhD in 20th-century architecture history from New York University. Her writing often explores the intersection of architecture, urban planning, and design, with a focus on how the built environment shapes everyday life. She is also a recipient of the Steven Heller Prize for Cultural Commentary from AIGA, an honor she shares with Design Observer’s Editor-in-Chief, Ellen McGirt.