Christopher Hawthorne
@hawthorne.bsky.social
Architecture critic. Proprietor, Punch List Architecture Newsletter (punchlistmag.com). Faculty Architecture and English @Yale. Prev. Chief Design Officer, City of Los Angeles; architecture critic, Los Angeles Times
Pleased to have a note on The Sea Ranch in this week’s Punch List Architecture Newsletter alongside a great interview with Sekou Cooke www.punchlistmag.com/p/the-educat...
Maybe some of those "why are you campaigning with an antisemite?" questions could go to Republicans backed by a Sieg Heiling white nationalist. The silence is especially deafening because Musk's involvement helped Republicans lose in WI in 2025, so the press even has its preferred horserace frame.
Schooley@schooley.bsky.social · 4w agoNote on pieces like these, not only is there no suggestion that Republicans should distance themselves from him, there's no hint that there's a reason to. No recap of his CSAM machine. No inflammatory racist quotes. No mention of the DOGE death toll. No history of his fabulist quotes.
Barton Myers, 1934-2026. A crucial figure in Toronto architecture and urban design has died
Remember that @archpaper.com essay on NYC's containerization plan that all of @bsky.app hated on so aggressively last week? I asked Matt Shaw, who wrote it, if he'd join me on Punch List to defend the piece & discuss "the online ruckus." To his credit, he did: www.punchlistmag.com/p/dumpster-f...
Dumpster fire
Matt Shaw, author of the summer’s most hated design essay, visits Punch List to defend himself. Plus, women run the Guggenheim(s), more on Tom Hines, and the sad state of L.A.’s Sixth Street Bridge
punchlistmag.com
"Lockheed Martin, which owns Sikorsky, has said it is paying to build the helipad as a donation."
i don't know why lying about this is such a priority for people. you should have the chutzpah to say it's ugly and we should build it anyway
It’s worth emphasising: the public have reached this conclusion all by themselves, because they sure as shit weren’t told it by the US press.
Prem Thakker ツ@premthakker.bsky.social · 2mo agoNew poll: Americans believe the U.S. should arrest Benjamin Netanyahu by a +22 margin Total: 49-27 Black: 53-13 Hispanic: 52-15 Ages 18-29: 58-17 Harris voters: 74-10 Independents: 55-20 23% of Trump voters agree as well Economist/YouGov:
Sigh. I was actually curious to read this thread, but it seems Ms. Wilson is merely workshopping a pitch to the New York Times for one of its famously nuanced pieces on Los Angeles
EMILY WILSON@emilyrcwilson.bsky.social · 2mo agoThere is a lot to say about the Nolan Odyssey movie. But one point that I think has not been emphasized enough is: this is a film about living in LA, as Nolan, my erstwhile British compatriot and age mate, has done for years. I gather it’s a strange place.
Wired sets the frame that the model “escaped containment,” but from an accountability perspective, OpenAI left a door open by failing to properly isolate their system. Real headline: “OpenAI’s security failure leads to cyberattack against another AI company.”
For posterity, from the NYTimes. Complete displacement of accountability.
this sentiment really belongs more on twitter than here, but I would be happy never hearing from the single-stair obsessives ever again
Some thoughts on embellishment in architecture and sport, by way of Embolo, D. Wade, Loos, Picon, Bloomer, et al: www.punchlistmag.com/p/ornament-a...
Ornament and crime at the World Cup
What soccer can teach us about performative architecture, and vice versa. Plus:
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Cool interview of Morgenstern about the story by urbanism critic Christopher Hawthorne here. Morgenstern, usually a film critic, wrote two architecture stories: an early profile of Frank Gehry and this one. Hell of a two-for-two on that beat. www.punchlistmag.com/p/i-beams-ar...
“I-beams are bending like cigarettes in there”
The latest on the crisis at the Pfizer building—including a conversation with Joe Morgenstern, who wrote a canonical New Yorker article on another midtown tower in danger of collapse. Plus: Stierli an...
punchlistmag.com
lol we couldn't even build a passable Spinal Tap version of the arch for the 250th Imagine how the real thing is going to look!
Priya Jain of @sah1365.bsky.social testifying against the Arc de Trump at today's NCPC meeting: "Reject this hasty and inappropriate proposal."
also, the universal reports from ppl who have worked for him, or known him forever, are that lander is just the best
If the Warriors can get either Burries or Morez, all good—
Never gets old. J-school essay topic: Is there any performance test for essentially life-tenure columnists? A limit on how many big calls you can get totally wrong, before they say: Hey, buddy, how about taking a step back for a while. Maybe a few reported pieces? Where you go out and ask around?
“To become president… in recent decades has required candidates to become prodigious fundraisers + expert shapers of their own personal and political narratives—two qualities that come in very handy when the time comes to craft a post-presidency plan + an architectural vision to go with it.”
“In order to ‘end the cult of personality that seems to be in place with the current Presidential Library system,… we need a single Prez Archives, housed in a facility run by the Nat’l Archives…in or nearby DC” Rotating exhibitions could be held there,… ‘but its primary purpose will be archival.’”
Is it time to reinvent the presidential library?
A road trip to Hyde Park reveals how far we’ve drifted from the original model
punchlistmag.com
I will not be in L.A. but this must be very interesting: @hawthorne.bsky.social @nyreviewofarch.bsky.social @lamaterial.bsky.social luma.com/5ysm82a3?utm...
A LACMA Therapy Session · Luma
Please join Punch List, New York Review of Architecture, and L.A. Material for a lively public forum on, and a chance for the people of Los Angeles to process…
luma.com
faking an assassination attempt so you don't have to go to a wedding sounds like a curb your enthusiasm episode
"The new LACMA is a big deal for Los Angeles. The Wilshire subway is even bigger" In his "Punch List" @hawthorne.bsky.social discusses the D Line extension: www.punchlistmag.com/p/the-new-la...
The new LACMA is a big deal for Los Angeles. The Wilshire subway is even bigger
A conversation with India Mandelkern about her new book on the D Line extension and the “chronic civic illness” of L.A. NIMBYism; plus: a Lamster Pulitzer and the latest architects to reimagine the Me...
punchlistmag.com
“The Wilshire subway is an especially notable milestone in this expansion. It remakes a key backbone of LA car culture, the home of the Miracle Mile and the Petersen Automotive Museum alike, as a heavy-rail corridor.” Excellent piece on the D Line opening from @hawthorne.bsky.social.
The new LACMA is a big deal for Los Angeles. The Wilshire subway is even bigger
A conversation with India Mandelkern about the D Line extension, a key section of which opens today; plus: a Lamster Pulitzer and the latest young architects to reimagine the Met
punchlistmag.com
Sadly going to miss the Viollet-le-Duc exhibition currently in NYC & closing later this month. But in addition to glowing reports from colleagues who have seen it, here are 3 nice recent reviews. 1. In @hawthorne.bsky.social's Punch List this weekend: www.punchlistmag.com/p/the-polyma...
The polymath’s revenge
What a brilliant exhibition on Viollet-le-Duc says about our own architectural and cultural moment
punchlistmag.com