Los Angeles: Downtown Deco

Los Angeles has been traditionally characterized in terms of a utopian image, at the forefront of the American dream of home and automobile ...

The High Line

Since the opening of its first section in June 2009, the High Line has received considerable acclaim in both mainstream and specialist desig...

IKEA vs MUJI

Two heavyweights of contemporary lifestyle design, IKEA and MUJI, are slugging it out for control of domestic life worldwide. The objects wi...

Philip Johnson: Glass House and New Canaan Estate

Last summer, along with more Manitoga research and a visit to James Rose’s New Jersey house, I finally made the pilgrimage to Philip Johnson...

James Rose House

As part of my ongoing Manitoga project, I visited landscape architect James Rose’s home back in July last year. Completed in 1953, the Rose ...

Brooklyn: Retro Authenticity

While staying in Park Slope for a few weeks last summer, I became intrigued by Brooklyn’s retro culture. It started with the furnished apart...

Why Design Now?

In a 2007 blog entry, I compared the last National Design Triennial, Design Life Now, with another exhibition, Design for the Other 90%, als...