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Urbanism
05.22.12: Shannon Mattern
Marginalia: Little Libraries in the Urban MarginsOn Places, Shannon Mattern surveys the rise of the little library, of the myriad pop-up, guerrilla and ad-hoc libraries that build on the DIY energy and political edge of tactical urbanism.
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05.07.12: An Xiao Mina
Art Village: A Year in CaochangdiOn Places, An Xiao Mina describes her volatile year in the Beijing arts district of Caochangdi, which was being threatened with demolition.
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05.01.12: Michael Ezban
The Trash Heap of HistoryOn Places, Michael Ezban explores the past and present of Monte Testacccio, the great landfill of imperial Rome — and finds a precedent for contemporary landfill reclamation projects.
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04.16.12: Aaron Paley & Amanda Berman
CicLAvia: Reimagining the Streets of Los AngelesOn Places, Aaron Paley and Amanda Berman argue that the semi-annual CicLAvia — which bans cars from parts of L.A. — is inspiring Angelenos to imagine a new urban future.
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04.10.12: Jerry Herron
The Last PedestriansOn Places, Jerry Herron traces the intersecting lives of architect Albert Kahn, artist Diego Rivera and industrialist Edsel Ford — and how they all shaped the visioin of Detroit as industrial powerhouse.
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04.05.12: Placement & Corine Vermeulen
Living with Mies: The Towers at Lafayette ParkOn Places, photographer Corine Vermeulen and the design collective Placement offer a glimpse of life in Lafayette Park, the Mies van der Rohe-designed residential complex in Detroit.
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03.27.12: Mimi Zeiger
The Interventionist’s Toolkit: Project, Map, OccupyOn Places, Mimi Zeiger explores the unfolding dynamic — and tension — between the grassroots tactics of activist designers and the institutional strategies of New York's cultural leaders.
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03.15.12: Julia Czerniak, Joe Sisko
UPSTATE: Design, Research, Real EstateOn Places, a profile of UPSTATE, the urban design center at the Syracuse University School of Architecture, including an interview with directors Julia Czerniak and Joe Sisko and a slideshow of projects.
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03.06.12: Giovanna Borasi & Mirko Zardini
Demedicalize ArchitectureOn Places, Canadian Centre for Architecture curators Mirko Zardini and Giovanna Borasi explore the changing social and political concepts of “healthy” buildings and cities.
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03.01.12: Alexandra Lange
How to Be an Architecture CriticSo you want to learn how to talk about buildings? Alexandra Lange suggests starting with “Sometimes We Do It Right,” Ada Louise Huxtable's classic review of the Marine Midland Bank Building in New York.
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01.19.12: Ila Berman & Mona El Khafif
Design, Research, Impact: URBANlab at CCAOn Places, a profile of URBANlab at the California College of the Arts, including an interview with Ila Berman and Mona El Khafif and a slideshow of projects.
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11.14.11: Robert E. Lang & Arthur C. Nelson
Megapolitan AmericaOn Places, planners Robert Lang and Arthur Nelson argue that the United States can now be understood in terms of a new geography of large and powerful "megapolitan" regions.
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11.01.11: Phillip Lopate
Above Grade: On the High LineOn Places, writer Phillip Lopate traces the pre-history of the High Line, and ponders whether New York City's elevated park will be a victim of its own success.
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10.27.11: Adam Harrison Levy
Urbanized: An Interview with Gary HustwitAn interview with filmmaker Gary Hustwit, director of Helvetica, Objectified and the new documentary Urbanized, which opens this weekend in New York.
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09.20.11: Quilian Riano
Landscape Optimism: An Interview with Chris ReedOn Places, Quilian Riano interviews landscape architect Chris Reed, who describes the rise of landscape urbanism from an academic movement in the 1990s to an increasingly influential set of ideas and practices.
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09.14.11: Aron Chang
Beyond Foreclosure: The Future of Suburban HousingOn Places, Aron Chang argues that the foreclosure crisis highlights the need to transform suburban housing — to make it responsive not to dated demographics and wishful economics but to the actual needs of a diversifying and dynamic population.
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09.12.11: Mimi Zeiger
The Interventionist’s Toolkit: Our Cities, OurselvesOn Places, the latest installment of Mimi Zeiger's ongoing series The Interventionist's Toolkit, which explores diverse tactics and projects in DIY urbanism.
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08.02.11: Richard Powers
What Does Fiction Know?On Places, novelist Richard Powers grapples with Berlin's history in this meditation on place and narrative.
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04.18.11: Timothy Beatley
Blue Urbanism: The City and the OceanOn Places, planning professor Tim Beatley makes a case for blue urbanism — a new planning focus on how the design of cities affects the health of the planet's oceans.
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04.14.11: Stephen Luoni, UACDC
Venture DesignOn Places, a profile of the University of Arkansas Community Design Center, which has turned Northwest Arkansas into a laboratory for the creative retrofitting of postwar suburbia.
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02.03.11: Tim Culvahouse
The New Orleans Corner StoreOn Places, architect Tim Culvahouse continues his series on the built character of New Orleans, with a look at the humble but sociable corner store and its role in the restoration of the city.
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12.20.10: Mark Lamster and Alexandra Lange
Lunch with the Critics: Northwest Corner Building, Columbia UniversityFor this installment of Lunch with the Critics, Mark Lamster and Alexandra Lange visit the Northwest Corner Building, Columbia University.
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11.11.10: Frank Schirrmeister
Plain CityOn Places, photographer Frank Schirrmeister wanders at dawn with a large format camera through the empty streets of Berlin.
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11.04.10: Charles Waldheim
Notes Toward a History of Agrarian UrbanismOn Places, Charles Waldheim sketches a history of agriculture in cities, from Frank Lloyd Wright to ecological urbanism.
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10.18.10: Thomas Fisher
Viral CitiesOn Places, Thomas Fisher explores "viral cities," looking at historic and contemporary pandemics, and arguing for stronger links between the practices of urban design and public health.
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10.07.10: Mimi Zeiger
Street CredOn Places, Mimi Zeiger reviews Street Value, the new book about Downtown Brooklyn and the dynamic interplay of shopping and planning, of politics and race and class.
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07.30.10: Architizer
China Portfolio: From the Linked Hybrid to the Bug DomeOn Places, Architizer curates a portfolio of recent architecture in the People's Republic of China, from Beijing to Shanghai, Shenzhen to Chongqing.
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07.13.10: Dan Pitera
Detroit: Syncopating an Urban LandscapeOn Places, Dan Pitera, of the Detroit Collaborative Design Center, curates a portfolio of projects by artists, architects and activists who are reshaping the city's abandoned landscapes.
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05.27.10: Leigh Merrill
Streets: Into the SunsetOn Places, a portfolio by photographer Leigh Merrill of photo-fabrications of the streets of San Francisco — images that are, like home ownership in America, an unsettling mix of fantasy and reality.
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05.04.10: James Sanders
Adventure Playground: John V. Lindsay and the Transformation of Modern New YorkOn Places, James Sanders on the transformation of New York City that began in the Sixties under Mayor John Lindsay — the reinvention of the city from a workaday zone to a scenic setting for urban play, an "adventure playground."
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04.30.10: Bill Guy
Take Me ToOn Places, a gallery of images of downtown Chicago by photographer Bill Guy.
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04.13.10: Tim Love
Paper Architecture, Emerging UrbanismOn Places, Tim Love explores the latest generation of paper architecture being created by under-employed designers — and argues that the current recession offers a real chance to align progressive theory with urban practice.
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03.01.10: Alan Thomas
Open Secrets: Photographs of JapanOn Places, photographs by Alan Thomas that explore the "peculiar geometries" of urban Japan — the small-scale improvisational spaces in between the big planned projects, and beyond the busy entertainment districts and the crowded department stores.
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03.01.10: Ian Baldwin
Reading RudolphOn Places, architect Ian Baldwin reviews Paul Rudolph: Writings on Architecture, and makes a compelling case for looking anew at several important but neglected projects.
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02.24.10: Robert Bruegmann
The Architect as Urbanist: Part 2On Places, architectural historian Robert Bruegmann continues his analysis of Paul Rudolph's late work, with a focus on several extraordinary projects in southeast Asia.
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02.24.10: Robert Bruegmann
The Architect as Urbanist: Part 1On Places, architectural historian Robert Bruegmann argues that the later and lesser known work of Paul Rudolph — best known for his architecture building at Yale — deserves renewed attention.
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02.08.10: Nate Berg
The Olympics and the CityVancouver planning director Brent Toderian talks with Planetizen's Nate Berg, about how the city has met the urban design challenge of playing host to the Winter Olympics.
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02.08.10: Arizona State University
Phoenix – Barcelona: Cities in TransformationThe School of Architecture + Landscape Architecture at Arizona State University sponsors and exhibition and symposium Phoenix – Barcelona: Cities in Transformation.
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02.05.10: Alan Thomas
Chicago Self-ParkIn Chicago Self-Park, editor and photographer Alan Thomas explores the city's large multistory parking structures, which "give the viewer inside a particular way of framing the cityscape beyond."
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01.25.10: Ian Baldwin
Architect, Park ThyselfThe auto-urban relationship, writes Ian Baldwin, is "fumbling, overheated, unsatisfying for both parties." Baldwin reviews House of Cars: Innovation and the Parking Garage, currently on exhibit at the National Building Museum, and The Architecture of Parking, by Simon Henley.
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01.10.10: Linda Samuels
Working Public ArchitectureCan we envision a contemporary counterpart to the New Deal of the 1930s? Architect Linda Samuels reports on WPA 2.0, the ambitious competition and symposium created by cityLab at UCLA.
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11.22.09: Sergio Lopez-Piñeiro
White SpaceArchitect Sergio Lopez-Pineiro explores the urban design potential of snow, with the goal of creating "white parks" and generating new appreciation for the city in winter.
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10.20.09: William L. Fox
Las VegasWriter and critic William L. Fox reviews Las Vegas, by Nicole Huber and Ralph Stern, probing the improbable success of the gambling-entertainment world-city constructed in the midst of the Mojave.
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09.18.09: Kees Christiaanse
Curating the Open CityKees Christiaanse, curator of the Rotterdam Architecture Biennale, outlines a compelling vision of the open city of the 21st century.
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09.04.09: Andrew Blum
Metaphor Remediation: A New Ecology for the CityCities are the new frontiers green living, and Andrew Blum argues that we need to revise the old metaphors: will Half Dome give way to the high-rise as the new emblem of environmentalism?
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08.05.09: Nina-Marie Lister
Water/FrontEcological planner Nina-Marie Lister explores innovative ways to regenerate urban waterfronts.
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12.15.08: Rene' Davids
Development, Topography, and Identity: The Dougherty Valley and the New Suburban MetropolisREAD MORE
12.15.08: Nicole Huber
Olympic Sculpture Park - Seattle, WA by Weiss/Manfredi Architecture/Landscape/UrbanismREAD MORE
10.15.08: Donlyn Lyndon
The New U.S. Embassy in BerlinIn creating a new U.S. embassy in Berlin, architectural design is just one of the challenges.
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10.15.08: Alex Steffen, Raymond Cole, Kevin Burke, Emanuel Carter, Stephen Luoni, Brian Stone, Frances Halsband, Kristina Hill, Diane Dale, Fritz Steiner, K. Golden, Megan Susman, John Thomas, Steve McDowell, Stephen Antupit
Climate Change and Place Roundtable DiscussionREAD MORE
04.16.08: Alexandra Lange
Will Miss Brooklyn Bow Out?The redevelopment of the Atlantic Yards was based on a false assumption of Brooklyn's inferiority complex.
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07.05.07: Alexandra Lange
Don't Call David Adjaye A StarchitectLauded and pilloried (well, by one client), the U.K. sensation, David Adjaye, heads to our shores.
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12.15.06: Amy Murphy
Seattle Central Library: Civic Architecture in the Age of MediaIn the Seattle Public Library, Rem Koolhaas and OMA work to transform architecture into media interface.
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07.15.83: Kevin Lynch
In No Order WhatsoeverJust before his death in 1984, the influential urban planner Kevin Lynch compiled a list of topics he thought important for the future of cities. The list is as relevant as ever.
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