The controversial restoration of the interiors of a sacrosanct cathedral elicits a call to action. Among modern architects, Chartres Cathedral, largely built in the first half of the 13th century, holds a special place. Philip Johnson famously said, “I would rather sleep in Chartres Cathedral, with the nearest toilet two blocks away, than in a Harvard house with back-to-back bathrooms.” (He first visited Chartres at age 13 with his mother, but the comparison came after he attended Harvard.) Much later, Johnson remarked, “I don't see how anybody can go into the nave of Chartres Cathedral and not burst into tears.”

The avant-garde's defense of the mountainous blob that Star Wars creator George Lucas wants to erect on Chicago's lakefront speaks volumes about all that's wrong with architecture today: a celebration of object-making at the expense of public space, plus a shameless coddling of the powerful, provided they serve one's aesthetic agenda.

I've always been partial to architectural mountains—from the Mayans to Bruno Taut—so I was delighted to see the hilly design that Beijing-based MAD Architects has proposed for the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Chicago.

During any given week, I’m told, 100 or more design buffs take self-guided tours of the San Francisco Federal Building (SFFB) by Pritzker Prize'winning architect Thom Mayne.

July 2011 Reassessing the rise and fall of Postmodern architecture It is now nearly a quarter of a century since Postmodern architecture — which proposed to make historical references respectable once again — was declared officially dead by none other than its most capricious establishment advocate, Philip Johnson. His exhibition Deconstructivist Architecture (co-curated in 1988 with Mark Wigley) at New York’s Museum of Modern Art brought an abrupt end to a trend that had lasted just over two decades. Photography ' Rollin La France The house Robert Venturi designed for his mother Vanna in Chestnut Hill, Pennsylvania (1964). Image courtesy

In 1998, the British critic Martin Pawley rather dramatically announced what he called “the strange death of architectural criticism.” Pawley lamented the disappearance of an aggressive, “take-no-prisoners” approach to critical writing about architecture, which he felt was being replaced by “wall-to-wall testimonials of praise.” Illustration: © Ross MacDonald I wonder what Pawley, who served as architecture critic for both the Guardian and Observer newspapers and died in 2008, would say about the state of the field today, particularly in this country. If the praise, at least for certain celebrity architects, has grown even more over-the-top, the number of critics has

Urban centers find innovative solutions for housing their middle class. Rendering © TF Cornerstone Arquitectonica’s forthcoming 606 West 57th Street (at right) in New York. The 40-story building will have 1,028 units, 224 of which will be affordable. The rendering depicts Bjarke Ingels’s future Pyramid building in the background. Geared to young professionals, micro-apartment building 38 Harriet Street in San Francisco by Lowney Architecture and Trachtenberg Architects includes 23 350-square-foot units. It's a well-known story by now: in the wake of a shift toward city living, and as housing prices continue to rise and wages stagnate, middle-class Americans are being