Architecture

It’s time to start thinking about public squares as democratic tools

First there was the Bilbao Effect, a quasi-spiritual conviction that erecting architecturally compelling museums would bring in droves of tourists and revitalize woebegone industrial cities. Now we’re starting to what you might call the High Line Effect (after New York’s High Line park). The Bilbao

An exhibit celebrates the brutalist playgrounds of the past, as should we all

Brutalism gets a bad name. Ok, let’s be honest, it has a bad name. If tomorrow morning you were tasked with encouraging parents to send their kids to a specific playground, you probably wouldn’t call it brutalist. Or would you? For a brief, wonderful moment in the middle of the 20th century, archite