Clik here to view.
City Hall Post Office
New York’s Lost Second Empire Gem The Second Empire as an architectural style in America has always bad rap. The most prominent example in the New World is the Old Executive Office Building next to the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Architectural Exhibitions
The Architecture Association is renowned as the most pedantic of training schools for the profession. Housed as it is in an immaculate set of Georgian townhouses in Bedford Square, its students are...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Articles of Note: 29 January 2024
Articles of Note Monday 29 January 2024 ■ It is always a joy to be in Scotland and my trip there a week ago was made all the more exciting by the very elements lashing forth to prevent me leaving on...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Whitechapel Library
There are precious few suitable uses for former church buildings. At the worst end of the spectrum is nightclub, though bar or restaurant often doesn’t fall terribly far behind either. To my mind, I...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Hawksmoor’s Dream
Andrew Ingamells, Hawksmoor’s Dream crayon, pencil, and waterccolour, 27½ in. x 17¾ in.; 1987-1991 (and available as a silkscreen) Andrew Ingamells is an excellent draughtsman who is probably the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
ICAA Videos on Architecture
The Institute of Classical Architecture and Art is one of the absolute gems of American civic society. As part of their remit of promoting traditional architecture and its many associated arts they...
View ArticleClik here to view.
St Mary Overie in Lent
The days are getting longer and Lent is already upon us. Here in Southwark I nipped in to Evensong in the late twilight of a winter’s day. They do it very beautifully with a full choir at the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A Happy Home in Maida Vale
Mary Christianna Lewis was better known under the most prominent of her various pen names, Christianna Brand, the author of such mysteries as Green for Danger, Death in High Heels, and Heads You Lose....
View ArticleClik here to view.
Immanuel on the Green
The prettiest situated church in the little state of Delaware In the old Delaware hundred of New Castle on the town green sits the Immanuel Protestant Episcopal Church — the first Church of England...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Cambridge
There’s a Dutch vibe to Cambridge that I rather like — but also a lingering Protestant Cromwellianism that I don’t. These two factors are not unconnected, and the highway that once was the North Sea...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Burns Tower
Which is the oldest university in California? The Jesuits began teaching at the University of Santa Clara in 1851. In the same year, and in the same town, a gaggle of Presbyterians received a state...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Bicycle Rack
We are so used to the functional ugliness of practical things in everyday life that people have forgotten we used to design useful things to be beautiful as well. A look at the street furniture —...
View ArticleClik here to view.
French Railways House
A disappearing remnant of 1960s Gaullist optimism in London While elegant proportions and a certain timeless yet modern style might sound like some bavard’s evocation of a French woman, it seems most...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Articles of Note: 17 September 2024
Matty Roodt, Bos multi block colour relief on cotton cloth, 31½ in. x 59 in.; (link) Articles of Note Tuesday 17 September 2024 ■ “People loved passing through, even for a two-day stopover, to enjoy...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Silver Jubilee
This week marks the silver jubilee — that’s twenty-five years — of the Jubilee Line Extension, one of the best-designed British infrastructure of our lifetimes. The Critic invited me to put together a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Amsterdam
Is die Amsterdamse stadsargitektuur die mees hemels in die wêreld? Winkels, huise, alles baie aangenaam. Burgerlik. (Ek moet teruggaan.) Die Nederlanders het ’n samelewing met ’n semi-republikeinse...
View ArticleClik here to view.
London’s Unbuilt University
The Bloomsbury Scheme of Sir Edwin Landseer Lutyens The University of London is a curious institution that these days no one really knows quite what to do with. At its zenith it was an imperial giant,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Secret Chapel of Harkness Tower
Yale’s Harkness Tower is, by my estimate, the finest tower in the United States and its designer, James Gamble Rogers, one of the best American architects of his day. JGR is in the Pantheon of his...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Clik here to view.
Christ Church
Christ Church Lancaster County, Commonwealth of Virginia I don’t much care for box pews: traditional wooden chairs are visually superior and much preferred. Nonetheless, this gem of the American...
View Article