Architecture

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Architecture, Art, Film, Museums/Galleries

Haunted Art

September 5, 2016

How apt that the red barn on top of the Metropolitan Museum of Art is called Transitional Object. It’s a term psychologists use to describe that which weans us away from, while providing the comfort of the original—think pacifier, though such objects might also be defined as props used to test reality. Could the same…

Architecture, Museums/Galleries, Vespers

Zaha Hadid 1950-2016, Architect

April 2, 2016

It’s been almost 13 years since luck brought me back to my Cincinnati hometown the exact weekend that Zaha Hadid’s new Contemporary Arts Center (or for those who are sticklers for naming rights, the Rosenthal Center) opened. In a downtown poised to transition from near dilapidation, Hadid’s striking building was a harbinger of what the…

Architecture, Current Affairs, Gay, History, Politics, Television, Theater

Scene of the Crime

June 7, 2014

It looks like a hole in the world. Among many other thoughts, that’s what struck me when I finally got a chance to see the 9/11 Memorial Plaza few weeks back. Symbols exist for a reason, and the architects of our country’s newest grief repository have hit on just the right one; it’s hard not…

Architecture, Art, Current Affairs, Museums/Galleries, Music, Theater, Writing

Comes another year

January 21, 2014

There’s a certain slant of light, Winter afternoons— That oppresses, like the heft Of cathedral tunes Emily Dickinson Winter is the cruelest season, though for me it’s not so much about the cold (though we’ve had our chilly moments, this time of year our apartment often feels like summer). What kills me is the darkness. …

Architecture, My back pages, New York

Disappearing Acts

March 25, 2013

Before: Thirty years ago I thought, This is too good to be true the first time I laid eyes on the view from my living room window. The overcast day could not disguise the miles and miles of sky that unfurled. That, combined with the space of 5 rooms sold me. My spouse at the time hadn’t…

Architecture, Art, History, Museums/Galleries, New York

Opening Doors, on Fifth Avenue and in Harlem

September 17, 2011

It’s the comeback of the year. Pardon my exaggeration, but the National Academy Museum has always held a fond place in my heart since I first visited in the mid 1990s. A block or so north of the Guggenheim, it’s one of those unsung jewels that, because of its size, tends to get overlooked on…

Architecture, Current Affairs, New York, Politics, Religion

At war with woe

September 11, 2011

Last night from the fire escape of our apartment my partner and I gazed downtown to take in the Manhattan skyline. There were our skyscrapers—the Chrysler Building, the Empire State Building, Citicorp, Time Warner and the still rising One World Trade Center—dotting the horizon, their spires lit up like an early Christmas. Suddenly two large…

Architecture, Current Affairs

Can You Say Dwell?

March 18, 2011

In the NY Times yesterday, a prefab feast: real estate developer Forest City Ratner proposes the construction of a modular tower for residential use in Brooklyn. Not sure about the long term implications (durability, stability, the usual) but those of us who salivate over the houses showcased in a certain magazine are curious to see…

Architecture, Theater

Separated at Birth

January 2, 2011

Casa Malaparte… …and the TKTS booth in Times Square

Architecture, Art, Museums/Galleries, Photography

Bountiful Baldessari

December 31, 2010

You’ve only until January 9 to catch John Baldessari: Pure Beauty at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. His work, boldly visual and laugh-out-loud funny, ranges over all mediums; some of us find such precociousness a bonus. Go.