Alexandra Lange
Architecture Critic
Alexandra Lange writes the Critical Eye column for Curbed, covering design in many forms: new parks and Instagram playgrounds, teen urbanists and architectural icons, postmodernism and the post-retail era. Her new book, The Design of Childhood: How the Material World Shapes Independent Kids, will be published by Bloomsbury USA in June 2018.
Alexandra was a 2014 Loeb Fellow at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, and received a publication grant from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts for her new book. She has taught design criticism at the School of Visual Arts and New York University, and also wrote the book on it: Writing About Architecture: Mastering the Language of Buildings and Cities (Princeton Architectural Press, 2012).
Alexandra lives in Brooklyn with her family.
New York City’s two biggest design stories of 2019 are also design failures
Our national addiction to drama extends to million- and billion-dollar projects that will shape the waterfront for the next 50-plus years
New York City is a mall
Experts claim retail is dead, but the "vertical centers" and "food halls" in America’s densest city just keep coming.
Filed under:
At Hudson Yards, the future isn’t now
The $25 billion megaproject bills itself as a "future city"—but it’s more of the same
Building your values
The Ford Foundation’s restoration of its landmark building makes a bold statement about what architecture owes the public today
Is America’s densest city ready to make room?
Our New York-based architecture critic says, "Yes, in my backyard"
Inside Spyscape, NYC’s first spy museum
Playacting espionage in a total design environment.
Natalie de Blois and the rise of postwar corporate modernism
An appreciation of the trailblazing architect behind some of Park Avenue’s most iconic buildings
Why SOM’s modernist Union Carbide building is worth saving
Renovation is always a better use of resources than demolition and replacement
Have you hugged a geode today?
The American Museum of Natural History’s Hall of Minerals and Gems closes next week for a gut renovation. Curbed architecture critic Alexandra Lange sheds a tear for its 1970s decor.
Cornell Tech's new NYC campus puts sustainable architecture into practice
Alexandra Lange visits the new Cornell Tech campus on Roosevelt Island, a $2 billion investment bringing high-profile architects—and a bevy of public space—to a neighborhood apart.