The War Against Sixties Architecture

A few days ago news broke that, absent some last-minute stay, John Johansen's Mummers Theater in Oklahoma City will face demolition. This comes on the heels of a report, just a week earlier, that Johansen's Mechanic Theater in Baltimore is also slated for destruction. It would be a crime to lose them.

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Another Imperiled Paul Rudolph Landmark

With so much of our focus on the potential demise of Paul Rudolph's Orange Country Government Center, in Goshen, there hasn't been much conversation on the threat to another Rudolph landmark, his Sarasota High School of 1960. A renovation plan would utterly compromise this landmark building.

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NYPL: Where's the Model?

After several years flying under the public's collective radar, an opposition is beginning to coalesce in response to the New York Public Library's proposed Central Library Plan, which calls for a transformation of the NYPL's main research library, at a cost of some $350 million. What will these renovations look like?

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A Century at the Ballpark

Fenway marks its centennial this afternoon. There will be a ceremony, and then a good-old-fashioned day game against the Yankees, their opponents when the place opened a century ago. The place has changed over the years, but there's still no better place to watch a ballgame.

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The Whitney Museum's Other New Building

After decades of trying to expand its Marcel Breuer flagship, and with the white flag now waving high over Madison Avenue, the Whitney has finally managed to sneak an entire new building right under Breuer's projecting facade. Symbolically it's perfect: it looks like a giant shipping crate, which is precisely what it is.

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A Letter to a Critic, Departed

Dear Herbert:
Please excuse this impertinence. I know we weren’t friends—who am I kidding: you didn’t know me from Adam, and I was no fan of yours—but I found myself on Duane Street this morning (don’t ask) and it occurred you might be interested in what’s been going on in your absence.

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Johnson and the Void

I am somewhat reluctant to write about Philip Johnson, given that I am still very much in the midst of my biographical research, but in a new essay I float one of my pet theories about how Johnson's architecture and personality tie together.

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The Most Beautiful Hostel in the World

When a project that is not of the luxury variety is described as "Minimalist," it is typically code meaning cheap, shoddy, and lacking in creativity. The Antwerp Central Youth Hostel is a rare exception to this rule. The design is by the local architect Vincent van Duysen, and was supervised by his very capable project director, Kristof Geldmeyer.

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Beauty from Junk: The Floating Genius of Harvest Dome

Even when we were kids growing up in New York City, Alex Levi had a rather quirky sense of the city and its aquatic spaces. One summer we took a film class at NYU, and Alex made a comic short about a monster who lived at the bottom of Boat Pond, in Central Park. All these years later, Alex is still bringing his unique creative vision to New York's waterways.

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At Home at the Edge of the World

About a week after the death of Steve Jobs, I sat down for an interview with Peter Bohlin, architect of Apple's spectacular glass-walled retail stores. The subject of our interview was a new house designed by Bohlin in the Connecticut woods, but of course I could not help but ask about Jobs.

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Mark Lamster is a writer on the arts and culture. He is Associate American Editor of The Architectural Review, and is currently at work on his third book, a biography of the late architect Philip Johnson. Follow: @marklamster.