Feb. 6, 2025 Ι Architect’s Newspaper Based on a child-centered and scaled view of primary school pedagogy that celebrates learning in landscape and artisanal craft, Crow Island School, in the North Shore Chicago suburb of Winnetka, is typically regarded as the first modernist school in the nation. Now, it is undergoing an exacting renovation and… Continue reading Perkins&Will revisits Crow Island School near Chicago to update and upgrade a groundbreaking modernist monument to creative pedagogy
Author: zachmortice
When French Communists Went on a Brutalist Building Boom
Feb. 1, 2025 Ι Bloomberg CityLab Let’s say, hypothetically, that there’s a left political party in an affluent Western country. It dominates in urban areas but struggles elsewhere; its working-class voter base has splintered with deindustrialization and more progressive, college-educated factions have emerged. As the nation becomes more multicultural, the party gets increasingly attuned to… Continue reading When French Communists Went on a Brutalist Building Boom
False Fronts
December 13, 2024 Ι The New York Review of Architecture As promised by its title, Julia Schulz-Dornburg’s book often reads like a travel guide. Tourist season—in select parts of Combat City—is year-round, despite limited opportunities for sightseeing. What attractions there are include an archaeological dig and a folkloric festival, plus a heavy emphasis on boot-camp… Continue reading False Fronts
After A Devastating Storm, An Iowa Landmark Finds The Silver Lining
November 19, 2024 Ι Landscape Architecture Magazine On August 10, 2020, a derecho ripped across the Midwest with winds up to 140 miles an hour, causing $11 billion in damages, the most expensive thunderstorm in the United States to date. In the path of the wall of wind and thunderstorms was Cedar Rapids, Iowa, which… Continue reading After A Devastating Storm, An Iowa Landmark Finds The Silver Lining
Chicago Workers Cottages Gave Immigrants Access to Homeownership
July 28, 2024 Ι Bloomberg CityLab With their steep gables and simple details, Chicago’s workers cottages can seem today like quaint remnants from another time. Yet the cottages are in many ways the building blocks of the city’s modernity, precursors to the suburban building boom of the 20th and 21st centuries. Built in the wake… Continue reading Chicago Workers Cottages Gave Immigrants Access to Homeownership
Strip-Skeeze at Architect Magazine
April 17, 2024 Ι The New York Review of Architecture As Jeff Meyers, CEO at Zonda, the publisher of Architect Magazine, tells it, there are big things in store for the company’s premier design journal. In an interview with NYRA in early January, Meyers played up a new tech hire brought over from digital-native news… Continue reading Strip-Skeeze at Architect Magazine
This Botanical Garden’s New Addition Is as Subtle as Light and Shadow
Oct. 30, 2024 Ι Metropolis Magazine As the front door to one of the nation’s oldest botanical gardens in continuous operation, the new Jack C. Taylor Visitor Center at the Missouri Botanical Garden’s most important job was to get out of the way and let the 79-acre campus filled with historic architecture and some of… Continue reading This Botanical Garden’s New Addition Is as Subtle as Light and Shadow
The Tartarian Candidate
Oct. 25, 2024 Ι Bloomberg CityLab At a New Hampshire GOP meeting in January, Donald Trump took off on an odd tangent. Lamenting the Russian invasion of Ukraine, he talked about its architectural heritage. “I mean, the country, how does it ever rebuild those cities, those magnificent buildings that came down that are a thousand… Continue reading The Tartarian Candidate
Architecture Program Leaders Face Existential Accreditation Crisis
Oct. 24, 2024 Ι Architectural Record The collapse of what should have been a routine renewal of a funding agreement between the National Architectural Accrediting Board (NAAB) and its partner organizations has incited howls of protest and a near-existential crisis at many architecture programs. In 2022, NAAB requested a 47 percent funding increase, according to… Continue reading Architecture Program Leaders Face Existential Accreditation Crisis
Sometimes, Democratic Design Doesn’t “Look” Like Anything
August 26, 2024 Ι Untapped Journal There is a lesser-known shadow twin to Daniel Burnham’s epic 1909 Plan of Chicago, which synthesized many elements of contemporary urbanism we have come to expect from cities: comprehensive parks and highway systems, an orderly street grid, preserving the city’s waterfront as a public amenity, and coherent neighborhood-scaled civic… Continue reading Sometimes, Democratic Design Doesn’t “Look” Like Anything