A weekly dispatch on architecture, design, and cities, from Christopher Hawthorne

Featured Posts

May 29, 2026

Whatever happened to the presidential library?

Ahead of the Obama Center opening next month, a road trip to Hyde Park reveals how far we’ve drifted from the original model

Christopher Hawthorne

May 01, 2026

The polymath’s revenge

What a brilliant exhibition on Viollet-le-Duc says about our own architectural and cultural moment

Christopher Hawthorne

Feb 13, 2026

Review: Reinier de Graaf’s radical chic

Or, How to have your taart and eat it too. Plus: Rem weighs in by email on de Graaf’s call for a mandatory retirement age in architecture

Christopher Hawthorne

Review: At the Obama Center, a return to idiosyncrasy for Tod Williams and Billie Tsien

Is the tower at the heart of the Chicago campus a bulwark? A monument to one man’s ego? A memorial to a vanishing vision of America? It might just be all three

Christopher Hawthorne

May 29, 2026

Whatever happened to the presidential library?

Ahead of the Obama Center opening next month, a road trip to Hyde Park reveals how far we’ve drifted from the original model

Christopher Hawthorne

May 22, 2026

Spencer Pratt’s Deco dreams

L.A.’s unlikely mayoral contender is only the latest on the right to call for a revival of the style. Plus: announcing the first Punch List live event(!), a collaboration with Los Angeles Review of Architecture and L.A. Material

Christopher Hawthorne

May 15, 2026

The Eaton fire’s miracle Rocky

It shows up as a surprising coda to “Rising Up,” Paul Farber’s show on myth and monuments at the Philadelphia Museum of Art; plus: a Neue Galerie-Met “merger” and a Reflecting Pool lawsuit

Christopher Hawthorne

May 08, 2026

The new LACMA is a big deal for Los Angeles. The Wilshire subway is even bigger

A conversation with India Mandelkern about her new book on the D Line extension and the “chronic civic illness” of L.A. NIMBYism; plus: a Lamster Pulitzer and the latest architects to reimagine the Met

Christopher Hawthorne

May 01, 2026

The polymath’s revenge

What a brilliant exhibition on Viollet-le-Duc says about our own architectural and cultural moment

Christopher Hawthorne

Apr 24, 2026

“The blemishes stand up and shout”

How much should we care about construction errors at LACMA and the New Museum?

Christopher Hawthorne

Apr 20, 2026

Premium

Peter Zumthor’s ten working rules

Sharing a much-requested list

Christopher Hawthorne

Apr 17, 2026

Zumthor earns his L.A. stripes

And other impressions of the new LACMA, now that the art is installed. Plus: the architect’s sloppy attempt at revisionist history

Christopher Hawthorne

Apr 10, 2026

Was Michael Sorkin “the last real critic”?

A conversation with Bart-Jan Polman, curator of a new exhibition at Columbia on Sorkin’s work as writer, architect, and urban designer; plus, best and worst takes on LACMA, the New Museum, and the Trump library

Christopher Hawthorne