Tag: michael-kimmelman | ArchDaily

The Architect as Writer: Expanding the Discipline Beyond Buildings

Diogo Borges Ferreira — Thu, 04 Sep 2025 07:30:00 +0000

Architecture has always been more than bricks and mortar. It is equally constructed through words, ideas, and narratives. From ancient treatises to radical manifestos, from technical manuals to poetic essays, the written word has served as a spatial, pedagogical, and political tool within the field. Writing shapes how architecture is conceptualized, communicated, and critiqued — often long before, or even in the absence of, physical construction.

The Second Studio Podcast: Interview with Michael Kimmelman

The Second Studio Podcast — Sun, 25 Feb 2024 03:30:00 +0000

The Second Studio (formerly The Midnight Charette) is an explicit podcast about design, architecture, and the everyday. Hosted by Architects David Lee and Marina Bourderonnet, it features different creative professionals in unscripted conversations that allow for thoughtful takes and personal discussions.

Michael Kimmelman Unfolds Our Understandings of Communities in Uncertain Things Podcast

Nour Fakharany — Thu, 02 Mar 2023 05:30:00 +0000

The hosts and producers of the Uncertain Things podcast, Adaam James Levin-Areddy, and Vanessa M. Quirk, conduct interviews with experts with a variety of experiences to answer the question, “Now what? How did we get here and what is next?”. In this episode with Michael Kimmelman, they touch upon many interesting subjects, namely, The New York Times institution and its evolution, Kimmelman’s new book the Intimate City, and our overall understanding of communities in cities.

Architecture Critic Michael Kimmelman on His Socially Conscious Work as a Writer-Activist

Time Sensitive — Wed, 07 Aug 2019 07:00:00 +0000

On the latest episode of Time Sensitive podcast, produced by the New York-based “conscious entertainment” media company The Slowdown, co-host Spencer Bailey speaks with New York Times architecture critic Michael Kimmelman. The two discuss Kimmelman’s lesser-known talents as a pianist; his 30-plus years writing at The New York Times(he started working at the paper as its chief art critic in 1990, a post he held until 2007, when he relocated to Berlin as the “Abroad” columnist for four years); and his goal as architecture critic to build a greater discourse around designing cities that are better, healthier, and simply fairer for all.

Critical Round-Up: Hudson Yards

Eric Baldwin — Mon, 18 Mar 2019 13:00:00 +0000

New York City’s Hudson Yards has opened its doors to the public, and the reviews are flooding in. Built on Midtown Manhattan’s West Side, the project is New York’s largest development to date and the largest private real estate venture in American history, covering almost 14 acres of land with residential towers, offices, plazas, shopping centers, and restaurants. A host of architecture firms have shaped the development, including BIG, SOM, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Rockwell Group, and many others.

Changing Climate, Changing Cities: The New York Times Launches Series on the Urban Effects of Climate Change

Patrick Lynch — Fri, 17 Feb 2017 14:10:00 +0000

Contrary to some beliefs, climate change is not simply some unidentifiable threat perpetually on the horizon, but a phenomenon that has already had real impact on real world places. To illustrate the effects of our changing environment, the New York Times has launched a new multi-media series called “Changing Climate, Changing Cities,” written by architecture critic Michael Kimmelman, that aims to expose how climate change is “challenging the world’s urban centers.

How Migration Will Define the Future of Urbanism and Architecture

Rory Stott — Tue, 05 Jul 2016 11:20:00 +0000

When we started talking about migration [as a conference theme], everybody said ‘don’t do it, it’s too controversial.’ We said that’s exactly why we’re going to do it.

Alejandro Aravena Is Profiled by Michael Kimmelman for T Magazine

Vladimir Gintoff — Mon, 23 May 2016 06:00:00 +0000

On the eve of the Venice Biennale, The New York Times’ Michael Kimmelman sits down with Alejandro Aravena in an intimate profile for T Magazine’s Beauty Issue. Visiting a number of projects by the architect and his office, Elemental, Kimmelman experiences socially minded architecture in an age of informal growth, income inequality, and mounting threats linked to climate change, all while learning about Aravena’s own path and growth as a practitioner. Although told by colleagues that he might be standoffish, Kimmelman finds Aravena to be “earnest, open, a little nerdy –– and deadly serious.”

With the Opening of the WTC Transportation Hub, Has Santiago Calatrava Been Vindicated?

Patrick Lynch — Fri, 04 Mar 2016 09:30:00 +0000

After 12 long years and a series of construction headaches, Santiago Calatrava’s $4 billion World Trade Center Transportation Hub has finally opened to the public. Once widely regarded as a symbol of hope for post-9/11 New York, the project’s ballooning budget and security-related revisions gradually soured the opinions of the public and top design minds including Michael Graves and Peter Eisenman, and provoked a multitude of mocking nicknames ranging from “Calatrasaurus” to “squat hedgehog” to “kitsch dinosaur.” All the while, Calatrava urged critics to reserve their opinion until the project’s opening. Now that day has arrived - did Calatrava receive the vindication he was insistent would come? Read on for the critics’ takes.

Michael Kimmelman and The NYT Release Multimedia Presentation on Why "Sound Matters"

David Douglass-Jaimes — Fri, 01 Jan 2016 09:30:00 +0000

"During the Middle Ages, smell was the unspoken plague of cities," writes New York Times architecture critic Michael Kimmelman. "Today it is sound." In his latest article, entitled "Dear Architects: Sound Matters," Kimmelman breaks down an often-overlooked element of architectural design, explaining how space shapes sound, and how sound shapes our experience of a space - and imploring architects to put more thought into the sonic environments created by their designs.

New York City Mayor Threatens to Remove Times Square

Karissa Rosenfield — Wed, 26 Aug 2015 14:46:00 +0000

Frustrated with the congestion of panhandlers, Mayor Bill de Blasio has shocked New York City dwellers by threatening to remove their beloved Times Square. As New York Times' architecture critic Michael Kimmelman reports, this comes at a time when dwellers fear that quality of life is declining in the city: "Entertaining the demolition of the plazas, the mayor sends a message that New York can’t support the sort of great pedestrian hubs that thrive in competing cities around the globe." Blasio said he will look into the "pros and cons" of returning Times Square to traffic. Read Kimmelman's full report on Blasio's threats, here.

How Bjarke Ingels is Reshaping New York City's Architecture

Karissa Rosenfield — Mon, 27 Jul 2015 14:34:00 +0000

Bjarke Ingels has become know for his “promiscuous hybrids" that are reshaping skylines worldwide. Now, after news of BIG's redesign of the 2 World Trade Center, Ingels is being credited for single-handedly transforming New York City's architecture. At the New York Times' Cities of Tomorrow conference last week, architecture critic Michael Kimmelman sat down with the 40-year-old Danish architect to discuss just how BIG is changing New York.

Why 2015's Most Important Design In Architecture Isn't A Building, But A New York Times Article

Rory Stott — Mon, 27 Apr 2015 10:30:49 +0000

Looking towards the uppermost floors of the new Whitney Museum of American Art, thick clouds roll diagonally across the sky behind. Reflected in the ample window of the museum’s main gallery they dash in a different direction, while the building’s white facade flashes light and dark in response to the changing light conditions. Superimposed over this scene, bold all-caps lettering pronounces the title of an article: the simple but dramatic “A New Whitney.”

Critical Round-Up: Renzo Piano's Whitney Museum

Rory Stott — Wed, 22 Apr 2015 09:30:36 +0000

Depending on how you measure it, Renzo Piano's new building for the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York (designed in collaboration with New York practice Cooper Robertson) could be the most long-awaited museum of the 21st century. At just a fraction under seven years since the first designs of the building were released, the incubation period has been long enough on its own - but in fact the project has its roots in a scrapped 1981 design by Michael Graves, when the Whitney was instead planning an extension to their previous home in Marcel Breuer's 1966 masterpiece on Madison Avenue. With such a highly anticipated building, the Whitney could hardly have a better man for the job; Piano is one of the most prodigious museum builders of our time. Yet despite this, since construction began in 2011 the design has been beset by criticism for its ungainly external appearance.

Twitter Critics React to Frei Otto's Posthumous Pritzker

Rory Stott — Wed, 11 Mar 2015 10:30:24 +0000

The sudden and unexpected announcement of the Pritzker Prize yesterday evening sent shockwaves through the architecture world. With the sad death of the Prize's latest laureate Frei Otto on Monday, the Pritzker made the unprecedented decision to announce the winner two weeks early, ensuring that Otto's final, crowning achievement would make its way into the obituaries of this great man.

Michael Kimmelman Discusses The Importance Of Advocacy In Architectural Criticism

James Taylor-Foster — Thu, 05 Mar 2015 04:00:45 +0000

In an interview with Erika Allen for The New York Times, Michael Kimmelman discusses "architecture criticism and the dangers of demolition." Kimmelman, the NYT's architecture critic, has built a reputation as someone who advocates for buildings under threat, his most well known "fight" being against renovation plans drawn up by Foster + Partners for the New York Public Library in Manhattan. Referencing his latest column, in which he shows support for the threatened Orange County Government Centre, Kimmelman elaborates on his critical position and why he believes that speaking out for buildings at risk is "necessary."

Fate of Paul Rudolph’s Orange County Government Center to be Decided Tomorrow

Karissa Rosenfield — Wed, 04 Mar 2015 16:00:08 +0000

Tomorrow legislators are due to decided the fate of Paul Rudolph’s Orange County Government Center. The midcentury icon, listed on the World Monuments Fund’s global watch list, has been the center of a prolonged debate challenging its right to be preserved.

Kimmelman on MASS Design Group's Open-Air Clinics in Haiti

Karissa Rosenfield — Mon, 29 Dec 2014 00:00:00 +0000

“Architecture and health are inseparable,” says Haitian doctor and founder of Gheskio in Michael Kimmelman’s latest New York Times piece In Haiti, Battling Disease With Open-Air Clinics. Recounting the devastating images of medical dysfunction that have circulated the internet since the Ebola epidemic, Kimmelman presents MASS Design Group’s nearly complete Port-au-Prince health clinics as a potential model for healthcare architecture worldwide. Combating cholera and tuberculosis with a modest, practical layout and open-air design, the new clinics will serve one of the city’s largest slums. Learn why Kimmelman declares them “handsome” and believes they will help eradicate disease in Haiti, here.