Latest Slideshows

I recently made a Peter Zumthor pilgrimage to Switzerland, where many of his seminal works sit within a 40 mile radius one another in the northeastern part of the country. An architectural journey...

Although the Venice Architecture Biennale invades all nooks and crannies of the four-square-mile island, most of the festival's big-hitters reside under the roof of only one building, the Italian...

Out of all of the exhibits at the Venice Biennale this year, I spent the most time sitting and playing inside the pavilion of the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Along with being interactive, dynamic,...

One of the most interesting things to see at an architecture festival is not necessarily the final aha! moment after a pavilion is finished, but the collaborative process of building. At this year...

As promised, here is the second part of our grand tour through the national pavilions at the 2010 Venice Biennale. Sejima forecasted well - the strongest crowd-pleasers were not the ones that...

The concept of each country showing their best colors at the Venice Biennale began from 1895, in the same spirit of nationalism (or chauvinism) of the World's Fair. This year, proceeding straight...

I was once told, "If you ever go to the Venice Biennale, you will see all of the architecture that the world will be seeing for the next two years."  So here I am, at the opening of...

The Paris metro was born with the same furor as the Eiffel Tower, right on time for the World Expo at the turn of the 20th century. Over the past few months, I've spent nearly an hour everyday...

Ten years ago, there was a petite house in the Bastille area of Paris that sat tucked away behind the boulevard, surrounded on all four sides by a deserted factory. Today, that little house still...

Stepping into the freshly decorated apartment by Jean-Paul Gaultier at Trocadero in Paris, I felt as if I had been transported into a quixotic dream, complete with a choppy journey through a triage...

A celebration of all things impromptu and participatory, Kawamata's Cardboard Workshop at the Centre Pompidou in Paris has seen many different rebirths over the past few months. Over the weekend,...

I received an unexpected postcard from the petite Polish town of Dąbrówno last week, sent by my friend Tim who was backpacking through Europe. He mentioned that he was shacking up in a...

Along the left bank of the Seine, the world's most famous museum of impressionistic art had a former life as an old, crumbling train station and hotel. Now, linking the chronological gap between...

Nestled in a leafy alleyway in Paris's famous 16th arrondissement, Villa La Roche is a prime reflection of modernist architecture in France.  Built between 1923 and 1925 by Le Corbusier, it...

With the Hearst Tower and the New York Times Building gleaming in the distance, the inaugural Iron Designer Challenge was held on the rooftop at the Urban Assembly School of Design and Construction...

From the first copper frog cast in Mesopotamia, molding and casting has progressed a long way in the realm of architecture and design since 3200 BC. Here's a roundup of some of our favorite recent...

From gypsies to migrant workers to families in RVs, nomadism has been a constant societal fringe condition throughout the course of history. While most people will cast aside a culture of...

After visiting the legendary floating villages on Cambodia’s Tonle Sap, I took a detour to Kompong Phluk, a permanent settlement built upon stilts at the edge of the lake. As I paddled...

With nearly ten million people, Rwanda is Africa’s most densely populated country -- yet it boasts fewer than ten architecture firms within its borders.  As one of the most pressing...

The Media Lab at MIT is an unmatched incubator of unlikely partnerships -- where academia and industry hold hands, and where art and technology are inseparable. Designed by Prtizker Prize-winning...

During my jaunt to Cambodia last month, when I was not hauling bricks to build an outdoor school kitchen with my studio, I had the chance to see a multitude of informal building in both urban and...

Thrusting its sinuous brick curves towards the Charles River, Baker House is one of only two Alvar Aalto works on this side of the Atlantic. As school gets underway, 300 students every year at MIT...