By Matt Chaban 1/08 9:12pm

Critical Mass

Huxtable, everlasting. (Getty)

Architecture Immemorial: Ada Louise Huxtable

“Whatever Philip Johnson’s legacy turns out to be, it will not rest on his buildings,” Ada Louise Huxtable wrote in her obituary of “the king’s architect” in The Wall Street Journal eight years ago. Mr. Johnson had once told Ms. Huxtable of his desire to work for royalty. Not finding any, Ms. Huxtable concluded, he crowned himself king and kingmaker. In his way, he reshaped the world, and so too has she.

Ms. Huxtable, who died in Manhattan on Monday at the age of 91, may not have set out to be the people’s writer, but that is what she became. She just wanted to share her ideas about the city where she was born, what was wrong with it and how it ought to be made right, but probably never would be.

“She was extraordinarily proper and quiet and dignified,” said Paul Goldberger, her protégé and successor as the Times’s architecture critic, a job she created and held for two decades, winning the first Pulitzer for criticism along the way. “She loved to get together and talk, and she was not above a certain amount of gossip, but at the end of the day, what you remember her for was her writing, which is how she wanted it to be. She was not a sort of quirky, unusual character about whom you would tell stories until the end of time. She wanted to be remembered by her work, and she is.” Read More

By Matt Chaban 4/02/12 5:00am

Critical Mass

Tis a far, far better thing I do... (PriceTower.org)

T-Squared Off: With Paul Goldberger Leaving for Vanity Fair, Is This the End of Architecture Criticism at The New Yorker?

There are two great thrones in American architectural criticism, that of The New Yorker and The New York Times. It was at these two journalistic institutions that the practice was born, at the hands of its king and queen: Lewis Mumford, that great champion of public works and technics, and Ada Louise Huxtable, still the dean of the design press.

Paul Goldberger has been in the fortunate, indeed unique, position of wearing both crowns. After graduating from Yale, he would find himself at The Times in 1973, a young buck roaming the city he loved, engaged to write just about whatever he thought of the buildings and street life therein. He was, quite literally, heir to Ms. Huxtable, who had not yet been pushed out of the paper for her obstreperous ways, and the two of them shared the job of architecture critic for nearly a decade. Two years after she left in 1982, Mr. Goldberger won the Pulitzer for his efforts.

Thirteen years later, in 1997, he would himself depart one side of Times Square for the other, joining The New Yorker, restoring the Sky Line column begun by Mumford half a century earlier at the behest of Tina Brown. “When I went there, I thought it was as perfect a life as you could have,” Mr. Goldberger told The Observer in an interview Sunday evening, “to spend half your career at The Times, half at The New Yorker.”

But like so many landmarks, from the Parthenon to Penn Station, few endure. Starting today, Mr. Goldberger will board the notorious Condé Nast elevator, but instead of getting off on the 20th floor, he will report to work two floors up, where Graydon Carter has finally poached Mr. Goldberger for Vanity Fair. Read More

By Matt Chaban 11/10/11 6:16pm

Critical Mass

Glowing reviews.

Ada Louise Huxtable Reveres the Renovated Empire State Building (the Twin Towers Not So Much)

Much as we have been enjoying the work of Michael Kimmelman lately, no one stokes the critical fires like Ada Louise Huxtable. The grand dame of the business, Ms. Huxtable writes all too infrequently for The Journal—only six times a year, but not because that is all the paper will give here but instead it is all she will offer them.

Today Ada Louise offers an especially intriguing look at the Empire State Building and its resurrection, an assessment really only she could offer as few others have the same lens through which to view it, having seen both its grandeur and its decay. Read More

By Matt Chaban 8/10/11 2:46pm

Critical Mass

Davidson and Goliath. (SVA)

If You’re Looking for an Architecture Critic, Try Justin Davidson

Our colleague Jonathan Liu has a nice appraisal in this week’s culture pages of what it means to be the architecture critic at The Times and whether Michael Kimmelman is up to the task. Mr. Kimmelman replaces the oft-maligned Nicolai Ourousoff, who stepped down last month, and over here at the real estate desk we have been hearing much the same thing: It is borderline offensive that The Times promoted an arts writer to cover architecture, but let’s hold out hope because he can’t be much worse than his predecessor. Read More

By Matthew Schuerman 12:00am

Ada Louise Huxtable

The phone in Ada Louise Huxtable’s study rang, and she let the machine pick it up. It was someone asking for a time when she could meet as part of a jury for an architecture award. “I resigned!” she barked back at the machine. She collected herself. “I am tired of having to teach these Read More