MAKE A GLASS

MAKE A GLASS

In the past, when a “master” was recognized he usually became an influence (Bramante, Palladio, and Michelangelo or, Oud, Corbusier and Mies). Today, while we recognize masters, we seem unable—on unwilling—to learn from them. Or maybe it is a misplaced emphasis on...
WITHOUT THINKING

WITHOUT THINKING

The philosopher Alfred North Whitehead wrote that “Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them.” It seems to me that this profound observation can be applied to buildings. I open a door, the...
MOYNIHAN HALL, CONT’D.

MOYNIHAN HALL, CONT’D.

A little more about the question of style. Style is not about what you say but how you say it, not about content but delivery. The impersonal announcements of voicemail, or of a public address system, are almost pure content, there is very little delivery beyond a...
A GOOD CAUSE

A GOOD CAUSE

Home: A Celebration, just published by Rizzoli, is a beautiful book in a good cause; it’s a fundraiser for No Kid Hungry. The interior decorator Charlotte Moss has brought together essays, poems, sketches, and photographs by a variety of authors, including Joyce...
COMFORT

COMFORT

“And really, isn’t that what design is meant to do? Challenge us, provoke us, unsettle our expectations. Comfort is welcome. But discomfort can be, too,” concludes a recent editorial in the New York Times’ T Magazine. Oh, really? That’s what design is meant to do? A...
i-BAUHAUS

i-BAUHAUS

Nicholas Fox Webber, the author of a biography of Le Corbusier, has recently published iBauhaus. I have not read the book yet, but the subtitle, “The iPhone as the Embodiment of Bauhaus Ideals and Design,” says it all. There is no doubt that the iPhone is a...