July 2007 Beneath the veneer of respectability or trustworthiness, a little bit of Jack Kerouac lurks in us all. Haven’t you, in the summer doldrums, wanted to chuck a few things in the back of a black convertible and hit the road--the mythic, American asphalt dreamstream that seduces us with the promise of abandonment and freedom? Bad boy Kerouac’s travels, and the metaphorical, picaresque adventures he encountered, lie at the core of a persistent 21st century dilemma: mobility runs counter to environmental responsibility. Photo © André Souroujon Unlike the heady days of the mid-twentieth century, when gasoline burned, burned, burned

May 2007 Architecture rises above abstractions. In case you have been seduced into thinking that our obligations to clients end when we hand over the keys to a project, or that all architecture inhabits a theoretical netherworld, think again. A building can engage an architect for a lifetime. Photo © André Souroujon I was reminded in a most personal way last week, when a trip to my hometown took an unexpected turn. Stopping off to visit an old client and friend on a brilliant spring day, we revisited his home on a hilltop, out near the Natchez Trace Parkway. Prior

June 2007 “History is the present. That’s why every generation writes it anew.” E.L. Doctorow According to E.L. Doctorow, architectural history becomes what we make of it: Interpretation and perspective shape our view. Today, the history of architecture, that most seemingly benign of subjects, has burst out of the classroom, far beyond Banister Fletcher, to generate energetic, lively debate among a generation revisiting accepted ideas and reexamining structures that rarely retain their original purpose. Contemporary concerns fashion new value systems for older buildings, sometimes resulting in an unforeseen sense of chic, such as when adaptation and preservation reinforce sustainability: What

April 2007 We have talked at you for 116 years. Every month, the members of the Architectural Record audience receive our curatorial choices—the architectural projects, the types of buildings and plans, the interiors, the houses, the lighting, the technical questions, and the cultural happenings, that we, the editorial staff, choose for you. Consistently, in correspondence and at live events, we listen as best we can, then attempt simultaneously to stimulate and inform. Each month, we try to bring you the latest, the best, the most provocative, as well as the highest examples of architectural work, domestically and around the world.

We have talked at you for 116 years. Every month, the members of the Architectural Record audience receive our curatorial choices—the architectural projects, the types of buildings and plans, the interiors, the houses, the lighting, the technical questions, and the cultural happenings, that we, the editorial staff, choose for you.

March 2007 The awards celebration that accompanied the annual Accent on Architecture gala, sponsored by the American Architectural Foundation, brought a powerful trifecta of AIA awards this February: Vince Scully delivered a panegyric honoring the Vietnam Veterans Memorial—Homeric in its linguistic economy, unflinching, moving overall. Edward Larrabee Barnes, who received the Gold Medal posthumously, came vividly to life in the words of Harry Cobb and Toshiko Mori, who described both his wide-ranging contributions to design and to the built environment (think of the Crown Center in Kansas City or the Dallas Museum of Art, in addition to the Haystack Mountain

The awards celebration that accompanied the annual Accent on Architecture gala, sponsored by the American Architectural Foundation, brought a powerful trifecta of AIA awards this February.

February 2007 For any visitor to Brooklyn in the past 30 years, the future of the area surrounding the confluence of the major streets of Flatbush and Atlantic Avenues has loomed like an unanswered question. There, in what could be considered the fourth-largest city in the United States, the Long Island Railroad disgorges in a complex where 11 different subway lines converge, all adjacent to the formidable barrier of the Vanderbilt rail yards. At the heart of what should be vibrant and urbane, punctuated by the optimism of the 1927 Williamsburgh Savings Bank tower, lies a kind of crummy blankness.

January 2007 Call 2007 the year of anniversaries, in multiples of 10. All have significance, none more so than for the 77,000 licensed architects, emerging professionals, and allied partners of the American Institute of Architects, who are celebrating a Sesquicentennial. On February 23, 1857, the architect Richard Upjohn convened a small group of friends (let’s call them out for glory, including a few names you might remember, to wit: son Richard, son-in-law Charles Babcock, H.W. Cleaveland, Henry Dudley, Leopold Eidlitz, Edward Gardiner, Richard Morris Hunt [whom you should certainly know], J. Wrey Mould, Fred A. Peterson, J.M. Priest, John Welch,

Call 2007 the year of anniversaries, in multiples of 10. All have significance, none more so than for the 77,000 licensed architects, emerging professionals, and allied partners of the American Institute of Architects, who are celebrating a Sesquicentennial.