Gottland: Mostly True Stories from Half of CzechoslovakiaMariusz Szczygiel
Glass! Love!! Perpetual Motion!!! A Paul Scheerbart ReaderEdited by Josiah McElheny and Christine Burgin
The Sympathy of Things: Ruskin and the Ecology of DesignLars Spuybroek
The Pentagon of Power: The Myth of the MachineLewis Mumford
The Bone Clocks: A NovelDavid Mitchell
June 21, 2013
A “stand-alone loft” as discussed in “I Am the Uncool Hunter.” Frederick, CO, 2003. (Photo by Karrie Jacobs)
Here are more of my favorite Metropolis “America” columns in a random order chosen by the magazine website’s search function. (See Part I, below, for an explanation of why these links are suddenly necessary. Hint: it’s not nostalgia.)
June 20, 2013
A Chilean glacier as seen from the deck of the Infinity, 2005. (Photo by Karrie Jacobs)
Recently, Metropolis Magazine, for which I’ve been writing a column called “America” for about nine years, redesigned its website. And, for reasons unknown, it was done in a way that renders useless all the links to all the stories that were on the site prior to the redesign.
May 22, 2013
What I saw at Javits: A CNC router carving small wooden cars (top), 3D printers spewing tcatchkes (center), and a built-in countertop espresso gizmo emitting cappuccino through a faucet.
Another year, another furniture fair. It was the 25th anniversary edition of the International Contemporary Furniture Fair at the Javits Center in New York. Every year I go and attempt to assess the state of the world by looking at sofas,
April 11, 2013
The American Folk Art Museum, October 2007.
Above is my one not-very-successful attempt to photograph the American Folk Art Museum on 53rd St., designed by Tod Williams and Billie Tsien. It opened to great acclaim in 2001 and was sold by its financially distressed owner in 2011 to the big museum next door. Which, of course, was the beginning of the end.
I took the picture in 2007,
February 5, 2013
The Edible Schoolyard, Berkeley, CA 2007 (photo by Karrie Jacobs)
At last week’s memorial for Bill Moggridge, who died in September, I began thinking about the places where his life intersected with mine, moments I’d almost forgotten. Bill was an industrial designer, famous for designing the first portable computer back in 1979. He was one of the founders of the well-known Palo Alto design firm IDEO,
January 8, 2013
Ada Louise Huxtable, 1974, photographed for Life by Alfred Eisenstaedt. (Photo poached from the Dwell website.)
I was sad to read in this morning’s New York Times that the newspaper’s first — and best — architecture critic, Ada Louise Huxtable, has died at age 91.
My favorite article of hers, “The Park Avenue School of Architecture,”
November 15, 2012
Special effects from the Who concert (top) made more special by the limitations of my iPhone camera. And (directly above) the non-iconic backside of the Barclays Center just before opening day.
It gets worse. Not only did I write kind words about Barclays Center, the rust-coated basketball arena that is the first building to go up in the much despised Atlantic Yards complex,
September 18, 2012
Robert Ryman? Agnes Martin? Kazimir Malevich? (Photo by Karrie Jacobs.)
Last night I took my SVA DCrit students on our annual field trip to Times Square. We started with a tour that featured the Marriott Marquis in all it’s bunkerish glory, and attempted to visit the Philippe Starck designed lobby of the Paramount Hotel, only to discover that the lobby was closed for renovation (strongly suggesting that,
June 13, 2012
Bodega, Havemeyer St., Williamsburg, Brooklyn
Everything is organic here.
June 8, 2012
The view from inside the Wythe Hotel’s rooftop bar, and the scene on the street below.
I moved. Again. Crazy, right?
Early last year, I relocated from downtown Brooklyn to Soho, to live with my boyfriend. Then, two weeks ago, the BF, the dog, and I picked up and moved to Williamsburg. So I’m back in Brooklyn. But it’s a completely different part of the borough.
