Architecture Writers Honor Huxtable with Letter Critical of Foster’s NYPL Renovation
Rendering of Foster + Partners’ proposed renovation of the New York Public Library. (Courtesy Foster+Partners / dbox)
A group of prominent architecture editors and critics, including AN‘s William Menking, have written a letter to the New York Public Library (NYPL) protesting the proposed renovation by Foster + Partners, under the banner of the “Huxtable Initiative.” The letters requests that the NYPL’s Board of Trustees reconsider the current plan to remove the library’s massive iron and steel stacks for a new atrium and reading room “before such an irreversible decision is made.”
Breaking> Goldberger Departing New Yorker, Bound for Vanity Fair
Rumors have been circulating that Paul Goldberger was leaving his prized perch as architecture critic at the New Yorker. It appears he’s been given a golden parachute from Condé Nast in the form of a contributing editor title at Vanity Fair, where he will cover architecture and design. AN has obtained an undated press release from that magazine confirming the move. “This is an appointment that thrills me profoundly,” Graydon Carter, editor in chief of Vanity Fair, said in a statement. “Paul is about as gifted a commentator on architecture, urban planning, and design as anyone you’re going to find these days—in other words, he’s just a brilliant writer.”
No More Nicolai: Critic Leaving NY Times
Nicolai Ouroussoff appeared on Charlie Rose (Screen Capture)
According to an in-house memo, New York Times architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff is “moving on” at the end of this month.
The sweet but short memo about the critic—who this year submitted his own Pulitzer nomination package—was sent around this morning from culture editor Jonathan Landman. Ouroussoff’s plan, the memo said, is:
to write a book about the architectural and cultural history of the last 100 years, “from Adolf Loos’s Vienna and the utopian social experiments of post-revolutionary Russia to postwar Los Angeles and the closing years of the 20th century,” as Nicolai describes it.
Folks Weigh In On the Future of the Folk Art Museum
American Folk Art Museum (Photo by Michael Moran)
Apparently the art world hates the American Folk Art Museum building! (Who knew?!) In the wake of the news that MoMA is buying the Todd Williams Billie Tsien-designed building, two of the art world’s more prominent voices both bashed the building and argued it hastened the Folk Art Museum’s decline. The esteemed Times critic Roberta Smith called it “unwelcoming” and argued that the museum’s fate was sealed by “lackluster, visionless leadership; the weak economy; and inappropriate architecture.” Smith’s husband happens to be Jerry Saltz, the pugnacious art critic for New York, who went much further in a piece titled, “Architecture Killed the American Folk Art Museum.” He called the building, “ugly and confining, it was also all but useless for showing art.”
Not everyone agrees!
MAD (Re)cap
Few buildings have sparked as much architectural criticism as Two Columbus Circle, the new home of the Museum of Arts and Design (MAD). Brad Cloepfil’s firm Allied Works has designed the new museum, set within the bones of Edward Durrell Stone’s old building. Critical reaction has been split, though the MAD haters seem to outnumber the fans. Read More
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