James S. Russell is a Seattle native who is an independent journalist based in New York City, where he writes about architecture and cities. This essay was first published in his Substack, James560@substack.com
Reducing energy is boring, maybe, hard to get one’s arms around because it involves so many things. Stick with me, please. Efficiency has been doing the hard work of bending the energy-demand curve downward for decades, whether it’s better insulated homes, Energy Star appliances, better lightbulbs, or hybrid cars that get 50 MPG.
A speed walk through the White House’s architectural history shows just how disruptive this project actually is but also how it is a building block in the authoritarian edifice Trump and the radical-right elite is creating to turn his increasingly chaotic utterances into a new era of colonialist empire.
A strange new choreography seen in countless videos has riveted eyeballs around the world as ostentatiously armed and masked federal immigration agents break down doors or haul people out...
Trump has embarked on the most significant alteration to the White House since its original completion early in the 19th century. He proposes to add a 90,000 square foot addition to replace the East Wing which was conceived by Thomas Jefferson but largely completed in 1902 for Teddy Roosevelt.
These are charities that formed to engage the scandalous scale of today’s hunger problem. Working with insightful architects, both organizations have been able to build transformative facilities.
Before the election Donald Trump promised to fix inflation, which included big voter concern about the cost of housing. For all the shock and awe, the chaos and the...
In its combination of quiet boldness, reticence when called for, and lack of self-consciousness, the term “masterpiece” does not seem to apply. It’s pretty satisfying though, and worth celebrating.