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Justin Davidson

See all their articles from across New York Magazine

Justin Davidson has been New York Magazine’s architecture and classical-music critic since 2007 and was the recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 2002. He is the author of Magnetic City: A Walking Companion to New York.

  1. architecture
    Pritzker Winner Francis Keré’s Small Buildings Have Things to Teach Big CitiesA lesson from the Pritzker-winning architect: Don’t overlook local materials, no matter how low-tech.
  2. street view
    Can Better Design Redeem the Cruise Ship?Our architecture critic goes to sea.
  3. street view
    The Start-up Aesthetic Defines New York’s Two New Ivy CampusesThey say they want to engage the community, but that outreach is self-limiting.
  4. street view
    The Concrete Innovators of Delhi and DhakaA MoMA show devoted to the inventive post-partition architecture of South Asia.
  5. street view
    La Guardia Airport Is No Longer a HellscapeThe new Terminal B: not bad at all!
  6. street view
    Most Green Buildings Aren’t Even Close to Being Carbon-Neutral — YetWith a few exceptions, their claims — at least so far — are built on fuzzy math and borrowing against the future.
  7. street view
    Hochul’s Penn Station Plan Is the Worst Kind of Urban RenewalDid we learn nothing from tearing the guts out of city after city in the 1960s?
  8. street view
    The Battery Maritime Building Is Beautiful, But It’s No Longer OursA gracious public structure taken mostly private.
  9. street view
    Frank Gehry’s Eisenhower Memorial in D.C. Is a Huge AnticlimaxIt somehow tells us less about Ike than it intends to.
  10. street view
    A Rare Feat: A Tower by a Major Architect That Doesn’t Fight With Its NeighborsAt the corner where J&R Music and Computer World once stood, the condo building by Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners is confident but not loud.
  11. street view
    Is This Really the Best 79th Street Dock House We Can Get?Renderings show a boxy institutional structure that could be almost anywhere. Surely we can do better.
  12. street view
    Concrete Doesn’t Have to Be an Ecological NightmareNew technologies may drastically reduce its huge carbon footprint.
  13. street view
    Why Do New Buildings Look So Basic?We can embrace ornamentation in architecture without returning to the past.
  14. urbanism
    Perfecting the New York StreetWe consulted architects and planners to create an achievable, replicable plan — one suited to a city embracing its public spaces as never before.
  15. getting around
    Meet the Newest Next Penn StationHochul is tightening the focus from Cuomo’s sweeping plans and looking to fast-track the project. Maybe it’ll work.
  16. architecture review
    The Observation Deck at One Vanderbilt Is a Ridiculous Place“Surely there’s a better way than assaulting them with lights and mirrors.”
  17. reclaiming
    A Landscape Architect Who Loves Ruins and Hates Ruin PornJulie Bargmann just won the first $100,000 Cornelia Hahn Oberlander prize.
  18. cityscape
    What It Takes to Give David Geffen Hall a New SoundA look inside the New York Philharmonic’s home, en route to its new (and, fingers crossed, better) acoustics.
  19. that’s no moon
    The Academy Museum’s Orb Is Like When the Trailer Is Better Than the MovieBursting Renzo Piano’s big L.A. bubble.
  20. architecture review
    Manhattan West Is (a Little Bit) What Hudson Yards Should Have BeenIt’s still a corporate simulacrum of a city, but given the history of such gestures, it’s surprising they got it anywhere close to right.
  21. street view
    A New Arts Compound in East Williamsburg That Draws You InThe Amant arts center faces the city with severity but aims to cosset visitors.
  22. ventilation
    How Clean Is the Air in Your Classroom? Your Theater? It’s Not Easy to Find OutThere’s little transparency about what we breathe inside big congregate spaces.
  23. street view
    To Stop Flooding, New York Needs Spongy StreetsThe city does the equivalent of mopping up an overflowing toilet with a rock. We have alternatives, and should use them.
  24. 9/11: 20 years later
    9/11 Gave Us Two Decades of Anxious ArchitectureAfter the attacks, we had a chance to build the downtown that New York deserves. Two decades later, timidity and fear have us hemmed in at every turn.
  25. proposals
    It’s Time to Dismantle the VesselIt’s either that or just leave it there, empty, as an Instagram backdrop.
  26. street view
    MoMA’s ‘Automania’: Car Culture, Minus the CultureA show that doesn’t get much past the chrome and glossy paint.
  27. street view
    La Central May Be the Best Affordable Housing Your Taxes Can BuyAnd that’s a problem.
  28. street view
    The American Dream Mall Is Ridiculous Yet Not Ridiculous EnoughThey’ve stripped the dazzle paint from Xanadu.
  29. street view
    A Slice of the SkyThe supertall 111 West 57th is what the ruling class builds for itself.
  30. street view
    Look! Books! The Tired Old Mid-Manhattan Library Gets a Sharp New RenovationAn understated top-to-bottom rehab puts open access — and open books — front and center (and a café on the roof).
  31. street view
    Little Island Won Me OverThe tiny public-but-private garden squeezes in a multitude of experiences.
  32. street view
    How a Denser Los Angeles Can Still Look Like Los AngelesWhere the neighbors don’t want towers, a city competition provides some alternatives.
  33. street view
    Riverside Park Is Falling ApartAll around the park system, decay is setting in and repair bills are mounting.
  34. street view
    Could We Really Get a Good Penn Station?Yet another wisp of hope.
  35. street view
    What Could Governors Island Be?An aquatic botanical garden, a film-set landscape, and more: Four fanciful transformation plans, commissioned by Curbed.
  36. the office
    New York City Made the OfficeAnd the office, in turn, made modern New York.
  37. good news
    Geffen Hall’s Renovation Will Be Finished Two Years EarlyThe pandemic closure allowed Lincoln Center to fast-track the rebuilding of the Philharmonic’s main auditorium.
  38. gallery view
    MoMA’s First Show on Race in Architecture Chooses Lofty Ideas Over Pragmatism“Why settle for the probable when we could instead imagine what is possible?”
  39. the covid memorial project
    David Lang Turned Remote Learning Into a SongPart 11 of 15 proposals to help us remember the pandemic’s toll.
  40. the covid memorial project
    Weiss/Manfredi Evokes a Doctor’s Trip Through Despair Into LightPart 7 of 15 proposals to help us remember the pandemic’s toll.
  41. the covid memorial project
    Daniel Libeskind Cages Lady Liberty in Half a Million Steel BarsPart 4 of 15 proposals to help us remember the pandemic’s toll.
  42. the covid memorial project
    Bronze Hands to Commemorate the Barely Seen Delivery WorkerPart 2 of 15 proposals to help us remember the pandemic’s toll.
  43. the covid memorial project
    Michael Arad (Briefly) Reveals an Ancient Wall Beneath the ReservoirPart 1 of 15 proposals to help us remember the pandemic’s toll.
  44. the covid memorial project
    How Will We Remember This?A COVID memorial will have to commemorate shame and failure as well as grief and bravery.
  45. street view
    How We’ll Be Able to Hear Live Music This SummerLincoln Center and other institutions embrace the distanced outdoor concert.
  46. street view
    Would You Want to Live in a Mid-Century Office Tower on East 38th Street?We asked an architectural firm to game out a (theoretical) conversion.
  47. getting around
    A Q.A. Q&A: Quemuel Arroyo, the MTA’s New Accessibility ChiefThe agency’s first CAO says he hears a lot of support within the MTA, but “I need to make a cultural shift here.”
  48. street view
    Scott Stringer Has Big Ideas About Your StreetAnd your sidewalk, and your commute. A first look at his comprehensive transit plan.
  49. out of order
    Will a Supertall Building Like 432 Park Always Have Problems?Not necessarily, but “every one of these towers is a prototype.”
  50. street view
    If Your City Were Really Dying, You Probably Wouldn’t KnowVisiting Annalee Newitz’s Four Lost Cities.
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