#designcriticism

Most architectural journeys in New York begin on foot. You walk the grid. You feel the city. You breathe the scale, the rhythm, the texture. But not this time. This was New York through a windshield — a moving frame, a cinematic lens, a reverse voyeurism where the buildings watched me as I passed. I was inside the car. The city was outside the glass. Times Square: Same Lights, New Questions I began, naturally, in Times Square. Some say it never changes. But architects see beyond the LED glare. There was something oddly organic this time. The Louis Vuitton “trunk” building — a strange, sculptural mass shaped like a gigantic travel case — loomed like a surrealist statement on branding, tourism, and temporality. Is it architecture or advertisement? A structure or a shell? The line between building and billboard has never been thinner. You wonder if the city is dressing up for someone else. JPMorgan’s New Tower: Corporate Power in Steel and Glass Further downtown, the under-construction JPMorgan Chase headquarters by Foster + Partners is rising with corporate ambition. Slated to become one of the tallest commercial towers in Manhattan, the building felt nearly complete. Sleek, assertive, and unapologetically vertical, it’s a flex of institutional architecture — efficient, elegant, and expensive. The refined geometry signals a new era of post-pandemic commercial space, where design competes with skyline legacy.

JPMorgan’s New Tower This is not just a building. It’s a forecast. Hudson Yards and The Vessel: A Mirror to Modernity Heading west, Hudson Yards unfolds like a manifesto. Love it or loathe it, you can’t ignore it. The Vessel, still haunting in its silent suspension, stood like a copper-colored question mark. Viewed from the outside and through the mall’s glass, it becomes more reflective than interactive now — a monument to ambition, halted by tragedy.

Hudson Yards and The Vessel

Vessel Walking the inner plaza, one sees clean lines and calculated luxury. Glass facades like those on 35 Hudson and The Shops feel less about community and more about capital. But the area works as an ecosystem. If Bryant Park was New York’s living room, Hudson Yards is its penthouse — polished, curated, and air-conditioned. The Louis Vuitton Trunk: Architecture or Advertising? Driving past the enormous Louis Vuitton installation in Times Square —a building designed to resemble stacked luxury trunks— it’s impossible not to pause. The gesture is bold, theatrical, and unmistakably branded. But while its form is visually striking and clearly intentional, the structure lives in a gray area between sculptural icon and architectural object. Functionally, it's a marvel of marketing more than a feat of architecture. The building operates like a massive billboard, an Instagram trap, a three-dimensional logo. From a design perspective, it's sculptural and organic, but in a way that distances itself from the urban discipline of architecture. It's less about spatial experience and more about symbolic saturation. In a city known for architectural rigor and design excellence, such a form feels slightly out of sync — interesting, even admirable for its branding ambition, but ultimately more commercial theater than urban architecture.

The Louis Vuitton Trunk: Architecture or Advertising? The Arabic Wall: A Message from Gaza in the Middle of Manhattan In SoHo, something unexpected: Arabic calligraphy painted high on a weathered wall. “This book belongs to Majed Allah Saad. Purchased in Gaza, February 1892 .” هذا الكتاب يخص صاحبه فتح الله سعد اشتراه من ماله غرة اذار ١٨٩٢

هذا الكتاب يخص صاحبه فتح الله سعد اشتراه من ماله غرة اذار ١٨٩٢ The mural, part of a project by Palestinian filmmaker Emily Jacir, is more than art. It’s a displacement made visible, a reminder that every city carries invisible scripts. Below it, colorful portraits of Mother Teresa and Gandhi stare at each other on another mural — two moral figures cast as symbols in a place dominated by finance and fashion. “At first glance, it feels like a personal inscription — a quiet claim of ownership, as if the wall still remembers its rightful tenant. But as I later discovered, this line is part of a powerful artwork by filmmaker Emily Jacir, inspired by the handwritten notes found inside books left behind in the homes of displaced Palestinians. What seems like nostalgia is, in fact, an act of cultural resistance — an architectural memory refusing to be erased.” The New Art Museum: Wrapping Up a New Chapter Further down the block, the New Museum is quietly finishing its expansion. The construction site was lit like a surgical theater — sterile and geometric. The new annex, designed by OMA, echoes the existing stacked-box design but with more opacity and mystery. Once complete, this will redefine Bowery’s creative corridor, cementing its shift from gritty to global.

The New Art Museum: Wrapping Up a New Chapter Reflections from a Moving City New York by car is not just a different pace — it’s a different narrative. The windshield divides you from the street but connects you to the skyline. From traffic jams to turning lanes, the experience becomes architectural in motion. 270 Park Avenue: Foster’s Latest Realized Vision The new JPMorgan Chase tower at 270 Park Avenue, crafted by Foster + Partners, is wearing its ambition—literally—out in the skyline. As of early 2025, its steel superstructure and triple‑glazed facade are topped out, and it stands poised to become the tallest all‑electric skyscraper in the city. Designed to hover lightly on the block with fan‑column structure and triangular bracing, it blends high-tech sustainability with refined urban form. The building promises net zero operational emissions, expansive public spaces, and state‑of‑the‑art wellness facilities—all while redefining what a corporate headquarters can be. This is architecture that acknowledges its city, by using less ground to give back more to its streets.

The first post is always the hardest because you feel the need to “set the standard”, to find the “write tone”. It’s the equivalent of looking through 50 selfies and asking yourself “which one feels the most me”.  I spent a good afternoon fiddling around with what I should write for a first entry and the top three candidates consisted of: an architectural review of my local library, a response to a quote from a Senior Apple Designer about social media’s shift towards e-commerce, and an angry tear-down of a pop psychologist. 

None of them felt very me. So I’ve decided to do something more straightforward, albeit also more dull, which is to answer the question “Why do I want to write”. 

I want to write because I like to seem smart and worldly. To be honest, I think everyone who writes is a bit self obsessed. One needs a good dose of sheer delusion to walk into a bookstore and say “You know what this place needs? More books.” Egoism can’t be the only reason, but I do feel that my intentions aren’t entirely pure. At age 22, I’m not exactly brimming with wisdom and yet I still feel this inclination to share with the world all my passionate (and probably misinformed) opinions. To think I have something worth saying (or the humbler version: to think in the future I’ll have something worth saying so I should spend my Saturdays tweaking my grammar) stems from a place of inflated self importance. But this egoism shouldn’t be written off entirely. Many thinkers and makers required this kind of delusional optimism to get them where they are today. With enough hard work and luck, the feeling that one has something meaningful to contribute can easily become a self-fulfilling prophecy. 

Aside from wanting to seem smart and worldly, I want to write to improve my thinking. I’m in my last semester of study and soon after I’m going to get thrown into the harsh world of New York capitalism where I will exchange my goods and services for wages. Outside of school, there won’t be a lot of opportunities for me to think in a way that is deep and critical and meaningful, so I want to get in the habit of doing that now. I want to form opinions that are deeper than just vomiting back out the latest NYT morning briefing. Finally will I be able to contribute a mildly-informed opinion at parties. Also, as designers, we’re asked to justify our thought process in our work. In writing about design criticism, I’m hoping to understand more of the large design landscape I am contributing and also improve the ways I talk about design. I really need to stop using the word “vibes” when I talk about design. 

And thirdly, be warned. This angry Chinese Canadian is hoping to indoctrinate future readers with her lofty, unrealistic ideas of democratic socialism. I don’t know a lot about taxes and economics and running an entire country, but I sure act like I do. Maybe in flushing out my thoughts on good design, bad technology and personal branding, I’ll discover flaws in my argument and gain an appreciation of the nuance and complexity of such topics. Haha, maybe! 

Written in English and published on the weblog of depatriarchisedesign, 27 June 2017.

After the end of World War II Germany had to face the consequences of the Nazi regime’s actions – which included millions of homes that had been destroyed or damaged during Allied bombings. The municipality of West Berlin came up with an open-call for ideas “Berlin plant” [“Berlin plans”], inviting both architects and citizens to participate. One of the questions was: “How can a standard family of 4 live on 65 sqm?” The female journalist and writer Alix Rohde-Liebenau (1896–1982) contributed a comprehensive piece of design criticism, questioning and challenging the premise of the open-call itself.

Written in English and published on the weblog of Designabilities, 4 June 2017.

For many designers the term “design fiction” is very much linked to the work of Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby (as well as Bruce Sterling, Paola Antonelli and Lucas Maassen). When thinking of Dunne and Raby’s work, one thinks of design fiction – and the other way around. Since the second volume of EP, a book series edited by Alex Coles, is on design fiction it had to (so it seems) include their work. But as there are also many other designers, artists and writers working in this field, it is worth to have a closer look at these diverse practices. And fortunately the publication is also offering this wider perspective.