Fifty issues later, we’re older, wiser, and still rat-infested! Celebrate our Big Five-O at Van Alen Institute on Thursday, May 7. Open bar generously provided by Kings County Distillery and Talea Beer Co. Link for tickets: nyra.nyc/events/new-york-review-of-architecture-issue-50-launch-party

“A lawn is someone’s moral sign. It’s also—and wonderfully—a gift to the street.” D. J. Waldie mulls the lawn in LARA no. 2 nyra.nyc/articles/suburban-legend

“Fay’s sculptures have the effect of rendering a pear pearish: not just one fruit crammed among many but a bizarre conjunction of textures, tones, and curvatures...” Kim Hew-Low digs into Ming Fay’s MIDNITE PORRIDGE, which was on view at Kurimanzutto, in NYRA 49. nyra.nyc/articles/veggie-tales

The great New York City subway map debate chugs along (cc: @markkrotov.bsky.social). Want to submit your own letter to the editor? Get in touch at [email protected]. nyra.nyc/articles/type:letter-to-the-editors

“Archival finds document Moses’s built legacy as it crumbles around us, all too slowly.” Hallie Ayres bookkeeps the Power Broker in NYRA no. 49. nyra.nyc/articles/raster-builder

“The Haida Hide, rescued from its prefab purgatory, might yet end up a beacon of Svenssonian modernism rather than a relic stranded by speculation and sprawl.” Eric Schwartau has cabin fever in LARA no. 2. nyra.nyc/articles/catty-shack

Bicoastal curious? Start a subscription at the link below before Friday, April 3, and you’ll receive not only our current issue, NYRA no. 49, but also our special Los Angeles edition, LARA no. 2—an entire extra issue at no extra cost! nyra.nyc/subscribe/bi...

“There’s a world where the art of the review is alive and well—and printed on cheap, single-color newsprint.” NYRA appears in good company in Carolina Abbott Galvão’s story on the resurgence of little magazines @columjournreview.bsky.social! www.cjr.org/feature/inside-the-reviewnaissance.php

“This riot also prefigured the healing potential of a vibrationally Black space-time—a futurist orientation that resonated across the exhibition.” Victor J. Jones attends a riot of sound in LARA no. 2. nyra.nyc/skyline/dispatches/hood-vibrations

“Like air, globalization is a hard thing to grab ahold of. Living near the Port of Oakland means having a peripheral sense of the fortunes of this great global slosh.” James Graham catches his breath in West Oakland in LARA no. 2. nyra.nyc/articles/air-apparent

“Is it possible that this monster, with its assortment of mismatched infrastructural parts, just wants to be loved?” Ian Volner finds beauty in the beastly Cross Bronx Expressway in NYRA 49. nyra.nyc/skyline/dispatches/cross-bronx-expressway-living-legend

“It was there that she could live as she ‘always wished to. In a most beautiful natural setting close to a city. With modern rooms and freedom to move about.’” Marissa Gluck dwells on the Galka Scheyer House in LARA no. 2. nyra.nyc/skyline/dispatches/neutra-dame

“Was this Zumthor and Govan’s plan all along, to turn the metropolis inside out, INCEPTION style?” Mimi Zeiger traverses LACMA’s David Geffen Galleries in LARA no. 2. nyra.nyc/skyline/dispatches/lacma-daisical

“The sheer vehemence of his argument and the dogged, almost mad attention that subtends it make THE STONES a singular piece of criticism.” Phil Coldiron leaves no stone of Venice unturned in NYRA 49. nyra.nyc/articles/und...

“It wasn’t my first brush with the all-seeing eye…nor would it be my last.” Michael Casper is ready for his Google Street View close-up in LARA 2. nyra.nyc/articles/city-of-angles

“I’m driving—AC blasting, terrier panting in the back seat—on the hunt for some recently deployed bus shelters designed by SOM with BMW’s Designworks and Studio One Eleven. The irony is not lost on me.” Mimi Zeiger seeks shelters in LARA no. 2. nyra.nyc/articles/helter-shelter

“For the first time since 2020, when the ‘Sunnyside Master Plan’ flamed out amid the chaos of the early pandemic, the decking of the undeckable is very much back on the national political agenda.” Revisit @aarontimms.bsky.social on Sunnyside Yard in NYRA 41 nyra.nyc/articles/avant-yard

“Upon driving in, each customer is handed a happy face air freshener that looks more like the logo for a matcha shop than a drive-through car wash.” Lina Abascal pulls up to Sun Day Carwash in LARA no. 2. nyra.nyc/articles/sun-day-sudday-sun-day

“Against the not-so-distant backdrop of natural wine bars and bakeries so Insta-famous they regularly sell out by 2:00 p.m., Abrons Arts Center cuts a tough but benevolent figure.” Marianela D’Aprile finds that LES is more at Abrons in NYRA 49. nyra.nyc/articles/most-likely-to-persevere

Extramural Activity | New York Review of Architecture @nyreviewofarch.bsky.social by @aarontimms.bsky.social "Trailing history on the Parisian périph" nyra.nyc/articles/ext...

We’re delighted to share that NYRA has been nominated for a National Magazine Award, presented by the American Society of Magazine Editors! Congratulations to finalists Thomas de Monchaux and @markkrotov.bsky.social! nyra.nyc/asme-nominations

“When Four Freedoms finally opened in 2012, Michael Kimmelman described the park as a ‘monumental triumph for New York’ and its ‘new spiritual heart.’ I can’t say I’ve ever seen what Kimmelman saw.” Justin Beal freestyles on Four Freedoms in NYRA 49. nyra.nyc/articles/cam...

highly rec this @nyreviewofarch.bsky.social story on sunnyside yard nyra.nyc/articles/ava...

“The resulting landscape is a ‘place’ in the way that a ‘bowl’ is now something that you can have for lunch—that is, a container of things standing in for a thing in its own right.” James Andrew Billingsley wags a finger at Wagner Park in NYRA no. 49. nyra.nyc/articles/nat...

“A barista recounted to her coworker an angry customer’s complaint: ‘I was in Korea and your latte wasn’t this color. You don’t have standards across stores?’” Michael Nicholas takes his coffee with a side of eavesdropping in NYRA 49. nyra.nyc/articles/spilled-beans

“I arrived in Paris, at the age of seventeen, a virgin. I left Paris, at the age of eighteen, a virgin.” @aarontimms.bsky.social will always have Paris in NYRA 49. nyra.nyc/articles/extramural-activity

“YOU just try to devise a poem that channels the qualia of zoning. And another on the splendiferous tonic of equity trusts.” @dlondonwortel.bsky.social waxes poetic about SONNETS FOR MY CITY (1965) by Arthur C. Holden in NYRA 49. nyra.nyc/articles/village-voice

"I hadn’t spent the day at my marketing job or taking a hot Pilates class. I am an unemployed writer. I didn’t make sense here." Isaac Engelberg nibbles on Lil Sweet Treat in NYRA 49. nyra.nyc/articles/gummy-shelter

I reviewed the office of Harper’s magazine -

“The place is full of stuff. There are black-and-white photos of Kafka randomly taped to windows and walls. Nobody is quite sure who put them up or why.” @ntok.bsky.social visits the office of @harpers.bsky.social in NYRA 49. nyra.nyc/articles/666-broadway-harper-s

Rose-tinted urbanism, at @nyreviewofarch.bsky.social (I had a gift link so it might work for you! Good stuff in the newsletter today) nyra.nyc/articles/whe...

Rat’s amore! As a token of our affection this Valentine’s Day, we’ve lifted the paywall from a selection of our most-loved articles, personally introduced by NYRA staff. nyra.nyc/nyra-staff-picks-2025

“I looked up at the preponderance of new developments rising over the waterway and tried to ignore the pervasive basal stink.” Olivia Gieger paddles down the Gowanus Canal in NYRA 49. nyra.nyc/articles/a-super-fund-thing-i-ll-never-do-again

“The new generation of chatelains are not to the manor born. As content creators, they are bound by the class solidarity of the hustle.” Kay Wisnowski takes a diacritical dive into the Châteauverse in NYRA 49. nyra.nyc/articles/group-chat

Amen.

Valentine’s Day is nearly upon us, and the internet is awash with the usual dreary assortment of gift ideas…but nothing says “I love you” like architectural criticism! Subscribe before February 14 and we’ll throw in a free yellow “Rat’s Amore” T-shirt. nyra.nyc/be-my-valentine

“THE FOUNTAINHEAD, as punk a product as the studio system ever green-lit, is still snarling today because it seems to lash out at itself.” Jackson Arn hails King Vidor’s THE FOUNTAINHEAD in NYRA 49. nyra.nyc/articles/at-...

I only have two, and ahhhh clearly only use one of them lmao but I’ve been using the @nyreviewofarch.bsky.social one any day I leave my apartment now!

“These objects preserve the social-democratic spirit that remained flat-packed, stateside, until Mamdani finally found an Allen wrench.” Eric Schwartau finds his Allen wrench in NYRA 49. nyra.nyc/articles/sca...

“We may yet find our way to a world where we can hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, and make playlists after dinner, just as Marx had in mind.” Nick Murray reviews MOOD MACHINE by @lizpelly.bsky.social in NYRA 49. nyra.nyc/articles/bad...

“We glimpse the ancient dream of perfect mastery over nature’s most violent expressions—catastrophe without casualty, terror without trauma.” Enrique Ramirez reviews Jennifer Kabat’s NIGHTSHINING in NYRA 49. nyra.nyc/articles/mak...

“The Villa produces a central effect of the Gothic form itself: It makes a carefully wrought ‘elsewhere’ of alluring and unsettling mysteries feel achingly present, if only in imagination.” Anna Ballan goes the full Brontë in NYRA 49. nyra.nyc/articles/jan...

While downed by a cold, I had the pleasure of reading the latest issue of @nyreviewofarch.bsky.social, in which Anna Ballan shares the good news of three sister apartment buildings in the Bronx, including the Villa Victoria, 2475 Palisade Ave. (📷realtor sites) nyra.nyc/articles/jan...

“The sculptures shimmer between plane and volume in a kind of dimensional dishabille, plotting ornament’s revenge upon Minimalism.” Zack Hatfield tries on Diane Simpson’s FORMAL WEAR at the American Academy of Arts and Letters in NYRA no. 49. nyra.nyc/articles/ste...

Subscribing to a newspaper and/or visiting websites and subscribing to podcasts with podcast apps is a big help in the world rn

“Cluster by cluster, the homes change—ranchettes for horse lovers, condominiums for snowbirds—while retaining the overarching, unmistakable homogeneity of mass construction with dimensional lumber.” @ce_tracey soaks up Sun City in LARA no. 2. nyra.nyc/articles/rai...

“Looking to private developers to undo nearly a century of car-centric urban planning in American cities, one small development at a time, is by definition a Sisyphean task. This is a job instead for broad-based public policy to take on.” @hawthorne.bsky.social on Culdesac

"A novel about the ennui of curated living bound for the meticulously curated bookshelves of the same cosmopolitan professionals it scrutinizes, Perfection offers no escape from the perfectly reflexive trap it lays for its readers."