Urbanization, the African Child, and the Dying Culture of Play
Some of my fondest childhood memories—growing up in different cities in Nigeria, in the eighties and nineties—involve time spent playing outdoors. We had ample spaces for play. Our schools also...
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Was Modernism Really International? A New History Says No
I taught architectural history in two schools of architecture during the 1980s and 1990s. Back then it was common for students to get a full three-semester course that began with Antiquity and ended...
View ArticleThe Bizarre and Confounding Influence of Dubai on Africa’s Emerging Cities
In the past three decades, Dubai has grown from a dusty desert town to a strategic hub for international business and tourism. As a result, several cities in the developing world have been competing...
View ArticleHow Sectarian Conflicts Permanently Alter the Psychogeography of African Cities
A week ago, African leaders gathered in Kigali to memorialize the 25th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide, a sectarian conflict between the Tutsis and Hutus that consumed nearly a million lives in...
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Believing Is Seeing: The Lost Urban Art of Looking Closely
The old-school wooden water tanks that stand on the roofs of many Manhattan buildings look like wine barrels ready to dispense a good supply of your favorite cabernet. They’re favorites of many Gotham...
View ArticlePaul Goldberger on Ballpark: Baseball in the American City
Paul Goldberger has a new book out, released just this week, entitled Ballpark: Baseball in the American City. Taking a page from the Ken Burns playbook, the book looks at a particularly American...
View ArticleA Proposed “Iconic” Tower in San Jose is a Monument to Lousy Urbanism
At some point when you’re reading this piece you’re going to say to yourself, “What about the Eiffel Tower?!” But I’ll get to that. First, let’s talk about San Jose. San Jose is home to over 1...
View ArticleIt’s Time to End the Reign of Single-Family House Zoning
Practicing architects live and die by zoning regulations. We begin routine projects by reading ordinances and calling local officials to reassure clients that their desired outcomes will be possible...
View ArticleComing Home: A Young Architect Returns to Her Native Madagascar
Joan Razafiamaharo is one of Madagascar’s leading architects. She holds a master’s degree in architecture from the University of Montreal and gained valuable experience at different firms in Canada...
View ArticleNotes From the Kutupalong Refugee Camp in Bangladesh
Over the past week, monsoon rains have flooded the Kutupalong-Balukhali refugee camp, an archipelago of settlements scattered throughout Cox’s Bazar, the southernmost district in Bangladesh. The...
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This is Our Chance to Rethink Safe Streets and Public Spaces
A global pandemic can change the way you look at things. In Greenwich, Connecticut, as with most places, restaurants and bars are shuttered now, schools are closed, and traffic is sparse as people...
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Did Latino Immigrants Save America’s Cities?
Nearly 30 years ago, Nicholas Lemann wrote the first widely read book about the “Great Migration”—the movement between 1916 and 1970 of more than 6 million African Americans from poverty and...
View ArticleAlone, Together: What It Means Now to Inhabit The Lonely City
I first stumbled upon The Lonely City, by Olivia Laing, in the basement of San Francisco’s City Lights Bookstore. Months out from graduating college and lacking any sense of forward momentum, it...
View ArticleHow Might the COVID-19 Change Architecture and Urban Design?
In the wake of the global pandemic crisis, there’s been speculation about how architecture, urban planning, and design might be permanently affected. Ashraf M. Salama, a professor at the Department of...
View ArticleA Conversation With St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Kriseman: Reopening the City
Most people in the U.S. have spent some part of the last 10 weeks under stay-at-home orders, about 36 million people have filed for unemployment, and more than 90,000 people have lost their lives due...
View ArticlePaul Goldberger on Architecture, Cities, and New York’s Long Road Back
In recent weeks, we’ve seen an explosion of internet speculation about the “future of cities.” Apparently, they are either doomed—or destined to prevail. The office is dead (obviously), the office...
View ArticleDesigner Nicolas-Patience Basabose on Contemporary African Architecture and...
The Democratic Republic of Congo is widely believed to be Africa’s richest country in terms of natural resources and mineral deposits, and home to some of the continent’s most lush flora and fauna. As...
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Toward a Green Folkhem: Climate Change as if Social Justice Matters
It is the hallmark of any deep truth that its negation is also a deep truth.” —Neils Bohr Around the middle of the 20th century, Sweden could safely be declared a socialist paradise. Its generous...
View ArticleBryan C. Lee on Design Justice and Architecture’s Role in Systemic Racism
In the rage, furor, and sorrow that followed the murder of George Floyd, one voice in the architecture community managed to put the nation’s centuries-overdue reckoning with race into the larger...
View ArticleThe Utter Folly of Certainty in Uncertain Times
The flurry of articles about “The New Architecture of COVID-19” is all trees, no forest. And for good reason: We don’t know yet if the forest is growing, dying, or being cleared, let alone the tree...
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