Category: Essays

Tom Vanderbilt|Essays

Wacky Packages of the Global Economy

Strolling recently down a heaving shopping street off the Djemma al Fna square in Marrakech, I did a double-take before a stall as I realized that what I thought had been an innocuous tube of Crest toothpaste was not quite what it …

Willis Regier|Essays

In Remembrance of Richard Eckersley

Design by Richard Eckersley. (Detail from copyright page of Avital Ronell's The Telephone Book: Technology, Schizophrenia, Electric Speech, 1989)Richard Eckersley died on April 16, having given the best years of his life to establishing …

Rob Walker|Essays

Animal Pragmatism

A critter label is any label that features an animal. According to ACNielsen, 438 table-wine brands have been introduced in the past three years, and 18 percent — feature an animal on the label.

Jessica Helfand|Essays

The Art of Thinking Through Making

I am at heart an irrepressible classicist who likes my type justified and prefers Merchant Ivory to Miramax. I'm an incorrigible Anglophile, a devoted Francophile and I am utterly convinced that my DNA is heavily weighted toward the first …

William Drenttel|Essays

Weather Report: 53 Degrees F. Heavy Snowfall Predicted

I was having dinner a couple of months ago with an old friend, a journalist I've know for over 20 years. Our common interests generally veer towards the darker sides of human nature, and it is more common for us to discuss Kafka, genocide …

Mark Lamster|Essays

Return of the Prodigal Son

Can Alexander Brodsky reinvent Russian architecture?

Jessica Helfand|Essays

The Propensity for Density

T-Shirt Detail, 2006. Designer unknown.On a recent trip to Los Angeles, we stayed with a friend whose remarkable art collection included work by Robert Mapplethorpe, Joel-Peter Witkin and the painter Squeak Carnwath, prompting more than a …

Michael Bierut|Essays

When Design is a Matter of Life or Death

When structural engineer William LeMessurier realized that his work on Manhattan’s Citicorp Center was flawed, he was faced with a choice: he could keep quiet and gamble with thousands of lives, or he could speak up. What would you …

Jessica Helfand|Essays

A Sequence in Time

Euripedes, the Greek playwright, once observed that time would explain it all. It was a poetic suggestion, yet to date, remains somewhat inconclusive. True, the passage of time might be said to characterize everything from the Mexican …

William Drenttel|Essays

Meet Me in St. Louis: The Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts

Exterior view, The Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts. Photograph by Robert Pettus, 2004.Nine months ago I went to St. Louis and had a memorable art experience. In and of itself, such an event should not seem so special. This is, after all, …

John Thackara|Essays

Design Transformation [April 2006]

Report on an emerging design discipline, a British government report about Intelligent Infrastructures Futures, decision support tools, the Aspen Design Summit, robots for elderly people, and more.

Kenneth Krushel|Essays

Santa Fe Diarist

Photograph by Kenneth Krushel, 2006.What is it about the United States that, more often than not, seems to insist upon appropriating a sense of indigenous culture, only to transform that culture into a mythological theme park? Historical …