Jean Prouvé’s Maison Tropicale in New York: Update

I have been fitfully researching Jean Prouvé’s Maison Tropicale, and now have enough new material to justify an update to my post of May 31,...

Drew Gardner: Petroleum Hat

With its inconsistent tone and self-conscious awkwardness, Drew Gardner’s second book of poetry, Petroleum Hat (2005), may already be an ear...

Starchitect Condos update

Following my last post, take a brief walk here through a new apartment at Herzog & de Meuron's 40 Bond St (really a promotional tour...

Designing Lifestyle in 21st Century New York: Starchitect Condos

The early years of the 21st century have witnessed a number of brand-name architects (henceforth starchitects) designing condominium buildin...

21st century Design Zone: the Meatpacking District

At the far west of West 14th Street, between the West Village and Chelsea, lies the Meatpacking District. This area of low-rise brick and ir...

Downtown music I: William Parker

I have finally finished the Downtown Music I: William Parker post, it's rather long now but I thought it worked better as a single post ...

Downtown Music I: William Parker

Over the next few months, I will focus on a series of posts about 21st century New York culture, starting with some thoughts here on New Yor...

Pilgrimage to Fallingwater

Our summer vacation this year included a trip across Pennsylvania to Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater. While much ink has been spilled ...

Nada Gordon: Folly

In a 21st American culture where simple dichotomies rule – good vs. evil, us vs. them, “as if it were a choice between OUD and BANJO” – Nada...

Design for the Other 90%

“A clientele of artists, intellectuals and connoisseurs of modest means is very congenial, but they are not in a position to pay for all the...

Cleaning up Modernism

Postscript on Modernism and cleanliness:Jeff Wall, Morning Cleaning, Mies Van Der Rohe Foundation, Barcelona, 1999

Modernism: Designing a New World, 1914-1939

London's Victoria & Albert museum's ambitious survey exhibition of 2006, Modernism: Designing a New World, 1914-1939, is current...

Jean Prouvé's Maison Tropicale in New York

In the last two weeks, there has been much hype accompanying the imminent New York auction of Jean Prouvé’s Maison Tropicale. One of three p...

Bernard Tschumi and the Death of the Avant-Garde

On Friday, April 13th, 2007, Tonic, the home of experimental music on New York's Lower East Side for nine years, closed its doors for th...

Elsewhere

For me, Gary Sullivan's poetic comic book, Elsewhere # 2 (2006), sparked not only a renewed interest in combinations of text and image b...