Archive

Over the past fifty years, one global demographic trend has remained remarkably steady: increased urbanization. At the turn of the 20th century, only 15% of the planet's people lived in cities. Today, that share is around 55%. And by 2050, we'll see the total urban...

In 1955, Trans World Airlines commissioned the brilliant architect and industrial designer Eero Saarinen to design a new terminal at New York's Idlewild Airport. In the 63 years since almost every proper noun in the previous sentence would be altered by some kind of...

When the Wall Street Journal identified Ten Hot Destinations in its "Where to Travel in 2018" piece, a curious outlier joined the likes of Shanghai, Montenegro, and Madagascar: the Scottish coastal city of Dundee. A former industrial hub on the banks of the River Tay,...

Survey a group of architects, engineers, and designers about their childhoods, and a common affinity is sure to emerge: Lego. With a little imagination, a Lego set can become a potent primer for space planning, structural engineering, and even landscape design. In...

Fueled by one of the world's fastest-growing economies, Dubai has never been a city troubled by humility. Long crowded with construction cranes, the desert city boasts a dizzying collection of ultramodern and hyper-tall skyscrapers, unreal manmade islands, and massive...

As one of the world's most successful filmmakers and boasting a net worth of more than five billion dollars, George Lucas enjoys a rare kind of creative freedom. If he is struck by a fancy, he can see it through without real impediment. But when he announced his grand...

Even if you've never set foot in Manhattan, you can name some of its most notable buildings: the Empire State, the Chrysler, the Flatiron, 30 Rockefeller Plaza. Everyone knows about the Guggenheim's great spiral and Grand Central's breathtaking ceiling, and everyone...

For decades, the title of "largest building" in the world by volume has belonged to the same owner: Boeing. Their factory in Everett, Washington employs more than 30,000 skilled workers, producing airliners from start to finish on vast assembly lines that buzz around...

One of the great goals of contemporary American architecture has been to create meaningful harmony between buildings and their natural environment. Some structures incorporate lines and forms from their surroundings while others aim for minimalism and transparency to...