Like everyone I’ve been shifting gears as the fickle winds of technology, which now regards blogs as passé, take me. I’ve been focusing more on journalism and book writing (more about my current work in progress here), and was for a time forced out of the blogging habit by work with the City of New York. Older blogs remain on this site and I have sometimes poured forth thoughts on Medium, such as this story.
I’ve had the privilege of working with brilliant editors and thus I am linking below some pieces you may not have seen that still seem relevant. They cover a wide range of questions: on culture, architecture, the effect of often toxic finance and public policy on communities (especially the warped housing market), the design of transportation infrastructure (a personal obsession), and lessons learned during the pandemic that are still urgent. Mouse over the title to find the link. Some stories may have snuck behind pay walls. I can’t help that, regrettably.
“The Costly Allure of the Showstopper Concert Hall,”
Crown jewel concert halls can be costly and they don’t always work, but many become central to their city’s identity. Bloomberg CityLab, 6/16/2023
“Diamond Schmitt and Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects Reimagine David Geffen Hall,”
A tale of the many renovations leading to the massive, finally successful, overhaul of an acoustically troubled concert hall. Architectural Record, 12/1/2022
“At Columbia’s $600 Million Business School, Time to Rethink Capitalism,”
Designing new aspirations into a storied business school, by Diller Scofidio & Renfro, The New York Times, 1/5/2023
• At 243,000 page views, among the most-read arts stories in recent years
“In the Heart of Manhattan, a Natural Wonder Arrives”
Architectural spectacle at the service of inspiring science curiosity at the American Museum of Natural History also unlocks the museum’s problematic past. Bloomberg CityLab, 5/4/2023
“The New LaGuardia is Haunted by the Mistakes of its Past,”
On the eccentricities of two new airline terminals, Bloomberg CityLab, 6/3/2022
“Penn Station’s Revival Gets a $1.6 Billion Down Payment,”
On Moynihan Station at Penn station that opened after decades of debate. Bloomberg CityLab, 1/15/2021
Taming the bizarre traffic patterns and plunging transit use that emerged in the Covid pandemic, Bloomberg CityLab, 8/25/2021
“Can Architecture Build Values, Too?”
A Fall Preview that focuses on projects that affirm community identity and enhance ecologies, The New York Times, 9/8/2022
“Confronting Architecture’s Complicity with Racism,”
Reporting on “Reconstructions: Architecture and Blackness in America,” MoMA exhibition, Bloomberg CityLab, 3/25/2021
“Epidemics: A force for Life-Changing Innovation,”
Exhibition review at Cooper Hewitt museum on the evolution of public health and architecture, New York Times, 12/21/2021
“What the Post-Pandemic Hospital Might Look Like,”
Lessons for redesigning health care architecture to meet urgent community needs revealed by the Covid pandemic, Bloomberg CityLab, 2/23/2021
“Why Essex Crossing is a Model Megadevelopment,”
On the decades-long controversial redevelopment that would open with numerous social-impact tactics intact. Bloomberg CityLab, 9/12/2019
“Minneapolis and the End of the American Dream House,”
On the movement to denser development as a means to reduce housing costs. Architectural Record, 10/2/2019
“Why Does the Demolition of a Marcel Breuer House Matter?”
On the implications of the loss of a modest but important mid-century Modernist structure, New York Times, Feb. 6, 2022
James S. Russell 
Leave a comment