Architecture

Tom Vanderbilt|Essays

Discipline and Design

"Communications office bunker below the Imperial Palace, Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam," photograph by Richard Ross, Architecture of Authority, 2007Looking to get a travel visa, I recently made my way to the Permanent Mission of the Socialist …

Michael Bierut|Essays

Rest in Peace, Herbert Muschamp

Officially published for the first time as a posthumous tribute: a loving parody of the writing of the late, great architectural critic Herbert Muschamp.

Michael Bierut|Essays

Donal McLaughlin’s Little Button

In 1945, architect-turned-graphic-designer Donal McLaughlin designed a lapel pin for a conference in 1945 that became one of the most widely seen symbols in the world: the emblem for the United Nations. Tomorrow is his 100th birthday.

William Drenttel|Essays

Koolhaas and His Omnipotent Masters

Koolhaas recounts the story: he chose between working on NYC's Ground Zero and the Beijing CCTV project based on a fortune cookie he was given at a Chinese restaurant — in it, the goofy prognostication "Stunningly Omnipresent Masters …

William Drenttel|Slideshows

Diversity as Form: The Yale Architecture Posters

Cover detail, Forty Posters for the Yale School of Architecture, 2006.Since 1998, Design Observer's Michael Bierut has worked in close collaboration with Robert A.M. Stern, dean of the Yale School of Architecture, designing more than 40 …

Michael Bierut|Essays

New House

In 1967, just after my tenth birthday, we moved from a cramped 1940s bungalow in an older Cleveland suburb to up-and-coming Parma, Ohio. I had been walking the earth for a full decade, but that fall I felt I was finally assuming my …

Tom Vanderbilt|Essays

Small Worlds

One of the first things I like to do upon visiting a new city is to visit the scale-model version of itself. From Havana to Copenhagen, I’ve hunted down these miniature metropolises in dusty historical museums and under-visited …

Michael Bierut|Essays

Where the Happy People Go

The ferociously positive letters column in Architectural Digest magazine demonstrates that design can make people almost unnervingly happy.

William Drenttel|Essays

Move It Down . . . A Little to the Right

Detail, Guggenheim Museum facade under renovation. Photograph by Chris Kasabach, 2006.One of the great artifacts of American architecture is being renovated in New York City. Scaffolds are up, and paint and surface stucco are being …

Debbie Millman|Audio

Steve Sikora, Thomas R. Wright + Charlie Lazor

Steve Sikora, Thomas R. Wright and Charlie Lazo discuss the finer points of pre-fab houses and modern design.

Julie Lasky|Essays

The Photography of Mark Robbins

Mark Robbins exhibition at Atlanta Center for Contemporary Art, 2003Mark Robbins' Households is a collection of portraits in which the sitters are sometimes sitting rooms (or kitchens or bedrooms), and the people are polished, draped, and …

Alissa Walker|Essays

Why Scientology is Good for Hollywood

If you live where I do, in the actual city of Hollywood, just a few blocks away from where the Oscars are held, you see the Church of Scientology as somewhat of a savior. Within a two-mile corridor along Hollywood Boulevard, the Church …