Fred A. Bernstein

Featured Articles (aka Fred’s Favorites)

A Brief History of the Twin Piers: What Might Have Been

FredBernstein.com / January 25, 2007

A Congress for the Many, or the Few?

By performing "constituent services," legislators short-circuit the democratic process, weakening separation of powers, equal protection, and other constitutional norms

 

The New York Times / September 9, 2012

A Country of Micro-cribs and Mega-mansions

America's housing disparity grows worse

The Huffington Post / December 2, 2011

A Facade Like No Other: Once Temporary, Now a Treasure

The badly damaged 1993 exterior of the Storefront for Art and Architecture in Lower Manhattan, by Steve Holl and Vito Acconci, will be restored

The New York Times / June 19, 2008

A Fellowship of Fabulists

The zany artistic duo of Kahn & Selesnick spin fantastical worlds that captivate collectors and critics alike

Introspective (1stdibs) / November 2021

A Harbor Cruise, Under a Rainbow

Aboard the fireboat John J. Harvey

The New York Times / July 26, 2002

A Loft in Boston's Chinatown

Sam Davol, the cellist for the Magnetic Fields, and his wife, Leslie, move north

The New York Times / November 22, 2007

A Makeover Too Far

The conspicuous consumption of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition

Dwell / October 29, 2006

A Natural Spirit

In Central Washington State, Painter Leo Adams unveils his masterpiece: a house that gives new life to found objects

Metropolitan Home / May 2003

A Neglected Modernist Masterpiece

Pier Luigi Nervi's bus station at the George Washington Bridge deserves respect

Oculus (Journal of the New York chapter of the American Institute of Architects) / November 2, 2003

A NIGHT OUT WITH Richard Chamberlain -- and (for the first time) Martin Rabbett

The veteran actor comes to dinner with the man who has spent decades hiding in plain sight

The New York Times / July 13, 2003

A Park Grows in Moscow

Diller Scofidio + Renfro leads an international team of designers, working in the shadow of the Kremlin

Blueprint / October 13, 2017

A Planned Expansion of the New Museum

OMA's design seems to hit all its marks

Architectural Digest / June 27, 2019

A Poor County, Rich in Modern Architecture

Visting the Rural Studio's buildings in Alabama is one of the world's great architecture pilgrimages

The New York Times / December 25, 2005

A Proposal for the Next New York World's Fair

It will be great for the city's economy, its infrastructure, and its reputation

Design Observer / November 13, 2011

A Road Trip Back to the Future

Visiting Paul Rudolph's Buildings in New England

The New York Times / March 25, 2007

A Store that Thinks Different

Tekserve lives the Apple slogan

The New York Times / June 20, 2002

Altering the Definition of Green Could Weaken Efforts to Mitigate the Climate Crisis

Making buildings resilient does not slow climate change. Usually, the opposite is true.

 

ARCHDAILY / January 10, 2021

American Architecture 1945-1970: From Post-War to Post-Modern

(all that in 2,500 words)

A+U (Japan) / November 6, 2017

An Icon in Eclipse? Let the Empire State Building Continue to Shine

The Empire State Building risks being obscured by lesser towers

The Huffington Post / November 28, 2014

An Island Where Millions Aren't Enough

The high price of Bermuda real estate

The New York Times / September 10, 2006

An oasis in a toxic world

A haven for "multiple chemical sensitivity" sufferers is threatened

The New York Times / July 9, 2005

An Online Peek at Your Politics

Do my neighbors need to know which candidates I support?

The New York Times / October 4, 2000

Apple versus Bloomberg

Only one of them can be "the greenest office building in the world"

Architectural Digest / November 27, 2017

Architect Alison Killing Uses the Latest Technology to Pinpoint Forced Labor Camps in China

The architect was awarded a Pulitzer Prize last month for her investigative work

Architectural Record / June 28, 2021

Architects Remember the 1964-65 World's Fair

One after another, architects who grew up in New York in the sixties recall how the fair inspired them

Architectural Record / May 30, 2014

Architecture's Quiet Soul

A profile of artist and memorial designer MAYA LIN

Blueprint / November 4, 2003

Are McMansions (Finally) Going Out of Style?

There's evidence that the size of new homes in America has peaked

The New York Times / October 1, 2005

Art Above and Below, With Life in the Middle

At home with Ann Brashares and Jacob Collins

The New York Times / January 4, 2007

Ball Games

My life as a sissy

The Advocate / June 15, 1994

Behind the Gray Door: Williams, Secrecy, and the Federal Grand Jury

NYU Law Review / January 1, 1994

Being Frank Gehry

With the triumphs have come many disappointments

fredbernstein.com / September 2, 2015

Being of Sound Mind, and a $55 Consultation

Can a website write me a new will?

The New York Times / December 14, 2000

Billy Doesn't Live Here Anymore

The incredible saga of the bakery founder's loft

The New York Times / January 27, 2007

Bob Dylan's Mother

"He's a beautiful poet. But I don't think he was ever the greatest singer."

The Jewish Mothers' Hall of Fame / November 23, 1990

City Folk

A review of the new American Folk Art Museum, designed by Tod Williams and Billie Tsien.

World Architecture / February 22, 2002

Commentary on Korach

Lessons on leadership from the Torah

Synagogue / June 16, 2018

Commentary: No Man Is an Island

What if New York City treated Barry Diller's $120 million fantasy park as an experiment, but not a monument?

Architectural Record / May 28, 2021

Concrete Makes a Comeback

Following the lead of Tadao Ando, architects raise pouring concrete to an art form

Interior Design / November 7, 2014

D'var Torah on Behar

Let's give the land a rest

Speeches / talks / May 13, 2014

Daddy, Why Are You So Old?

How I became a middle aged father.

The Advocate / May 28, 2002

Daring Design in a Laid-Back City

Thanks to Rem Koolhaas, Porto, Portugal will never be the same

The New York Times / June 19, 2005

Diller Scofidio + Renfro's Amazing Continuous Surface Building

Their new Columbia Medical School study center caps decades of experimentation

Blueprint / November 9, 2016

Do Ask, Do Tell

David Mixner moves to Livingston Manor, New York

The New York Times / July 17, 2007

Drawing Closer to an Old Friend

Thoughts on the importance of the Empire State Building after September 11

The New York Times / October 11, 2001

Eero Saarinen's Better Half?

A new book gives Mrs. Saarinen too much credit, and its author, Eva Hagberg, too much space

The Architect's Newspaper / September 12, 2022

Empty Nest Syndrome

For children of minimalists, only more is more

T Magazine (The New York Times) / November 7, 2009

Forget the Hype. Is Harvard's HouseZero Sustainable?

A very expensive experiment in creating an energy-efficient dwelling overlooks the impact of embodied energy

Architectural Record / July 1, 2021

Frank Lloyd Wright Stays Busy in Buffalo

45 years after his death, three buildings by Wright are in the works

The New York Times / September 6, 2004

Frederic Schwartz obituary

Architectural Record / April 29, 2004

From the Torch to the Toes, Digital Insurance

How the Statue of Liberty could be recreated, after a disaster

The New York Times / September 11, 2003

Gene Simmons's Mother

The Holocaust survivor who birthed a rock star

The Jewish Mothers' Hall of Fame / November 23, 1990

Get Ready for the High Line

How Robert Hammond and Joshua David Saved the Elevated Railway

Surface / December 25, 2004

Glass House, Great Performance

Merce Cunningham animates Philip Johnson's estate

Interior Design / August 25, 2007

Glazing Over Manhattan

Too many glass buildings, and the city becomes just another shiny office park

Architectural Record / May 9, 2013

Glenn Greenwald: Life Beyond Borders

The controversial journalist and activist opens the (guarded) gate of his Rio de Janeiro home

Out / April 18, 2011

Gordon Matta-Clark's Indelible Influence on Architecture

His subtractive approach has countless applications

Architectural Digest / November 25, 2017

Grace Farms, by SANAA

A Gossamer Serpent in New Canaan

Blueprint / June 20, 2018

Greece's Colossal New Guilt Trip

Bernard Tschumi's New Acropolis Museum was designed to settle a score

The New York Times / January 18, 2004

Greetings from Resisterville

A town where Vietnam draft avoiders have made a difference

The New York Times / November 20, 2004

Harvey Fierstein's mother

"Is Harvey gay? I don't know. I don't sleep with him."

The Jewish Mothers' Hall of Fame / November 21, 1990

High Hopes and Worthless Land

My father's bad investment

The New York Times / November 6, 2005

How Diller Scofidio + Renfro Have Reshaped Manhattan's Contemporary Cultural Landscape

And What's Next for These Hometown Heroes?

Architectural Digest / December 10, 2019

How Green Are Apple's Carbon-Sequestering Trees, Really?

Not as green as we might hope -- or as Apple might suggest

The Architect's Newspaper / September 2007

How Green Is My Renovation?

A roundtable of experts on making existing houses greener

Metropolitan Home / April 7, 2008

Ice Hotel Quebec-Canada

A review of the cold accommodations

The New York Times / December 17, 2006

Immigrant Architect: Anda Andrei (Romania)

Architectural Digest / April 10, 2018

Immigrant Architect: Elizabeth Diller (Poland)

Architectural Digest / February 16, 2018

Immigrant Architect: Sandro Marpillero (Italy)

Architectural Digest / March 9, 2018

In Marfa, a New Interior With an Old Soul

Why Barbara Hill is one of my favorite designers, ever

The New York Times / October 12, 2006

Intellectual Property

Gallerist Max Protetch and Museum Director Irene Hofmann fill their Santa Fe home with art

Departures / October 2018

Irish Pride Meets Gay Pride

The gay backstory of New York's Irish Hunger Memorial

The Advocate / October 6, 2002

Is That Your Final Answer?

My life as a juror.

California Lawyer / May 1, 2000

It's the Architecture, Not The Architect, I'm Rooting For

Give Calatrava a chance!

Architectural Record / December 10, 2013

Kali Is an Art World Sensation, 40 Years after She Hid Her Work Away

 
Introspective (1stdibs) / January 1, 2000

Kristen Richards obituary

Architectural Record / July 2, 2021

Legacies Passed from Father to Son

Gustavo Bonevardi in the West Village

The New York Times / December 3, 2006

Leslie Robertson obituary

The New York Times / February 11, 2021

Let's make New York un-gateful

A proposal for improving New York's streets.

The New York Daily News / November 4, 2003

Letting the High Line Be the High Line

The gentle architecture of Phase Three

Architectural Record / September 10, 2014

Making a Neighborhood Safe for Kids

A brilliant way to privilege underprivileged children

The New York Times / September 17, 2006

Mama's Meatballs

The New York Blade / October 10, 2003

Married or Not, It's a Full House

The lives of Steven Lofton, Roger Croteau, and their foster children

The New York Times / November 19, 2003

Me and My Geiger Counter

Was I being practical, or paranoid?

The New York Times / June 22, 2002

Meet Chatham Towers, New York's Architects' Aerie

Curbed / March 1, 2019

Memorials fit for a city

Architects get busy after 9/11

Blueprint / February 22, 2002

Mildred (Mickey) Friedman obituary

The great critic, curator and connector

Architectural Record / September 5, 2014

Mission 66

An endangered species at the National Parks: modernist architecture

Architecture / December 15, 2000

Move the United Nations to Ground Zero

The Freedom Tower could become a true symbol of freedom

The New York Times / April 24, 2005

My New App: Splainer

Uber and Tinder are just the app-etizers

Metropolitan Home / May 31, 2016

Nara: The Town That Time Forgot

A quiet alternative to Kyoto

The New York Times / November 13, 2006

Negative Energy and (Dis)embodied Carbon VIDEO

Ignoring embodied carbon lets architects, developers and even architecture schools call wasteful buildings "green"

Speeches / talks / November 11, 2021

Negative Energy and (Dis)embodied Carbon WRITTEN VERSION

Ignoring embodied carbon lets architects, developers and even architecture schools call wasteful buildings "green"

Speeches / talks / November 11, 2021

Not Your Daddy's SOM

Roger Duffy remakes the mega-firm

Metropolis / December 24, 2003

NYU Law School Commencement Speech

Speeches / talks / May 9, 1994

On Campus, Rethinking Biology 101

Transgender students gain rights, and respect, in college

The New York Times / March 7, 2004

One campus, two faces

Princeton goes Gehry -- and Gothic -- at the same time

The Princeton Alumni Weekly / January 21, 2003

Panama Highway, A Noose Around Casco Viejo's Neck?

An old city gets an unwelcome new neighbor

Architectural Record / October 26, 2012

Passive House Standards Create Embodied Energy Problems

Following Passive House standards is meant to reduce the amount of energy needed to operate a building. But some of the requirements -- triple-glazed windows, thick layers of insulation -- increase the building's embodied energy. And in some cases the result is a building that emits more, not less, carbon than it would have without Passive House features.

Architectural Record / October 20, 2022

Pecha Kucha

Around the world in 20 slides

Culture + Travel / September 5, 2008

Peter Eisenman in Verona

A review of the architect's 2004 Castelvecchio installation

Architectural Record / December 6, 2004

Phoenix Central Library Receives AIA’s 25-Year Award

Since it opened in 1995, Bruder has been able to bring the building into the 21st century without compromising his architectural vision, of which flexibility was a key part

Architectural Record / May 31, 2021

Pierwise, One Person's Wreck Is Another's Art

Saving two rusting piers in the Hudson River

The New York Times / September 4, 2003

Post-Renovation Depression

The contractors are gone. So why do I feel blue?

The New York Times / February 22, 2007

Pretty Profits from Ugly Houses

How HomeVestors went national

The New York Times / February 19, 2006

Private Lives

The difficulties of saving New Canaan's modernist architecture

Metropolis / August 6, 2005

Queen for a Day

Events of the summer of 1969

fredbernstein.com / October 14, 2016

Rauschenberg and Johns

Two great artists as lovers

Out / February 16, 2010

Rediscovering a Heroine of Chicago Architecture

Many of Frank Lloyd Wright's most evocative drawings were by Marion Mahony Griffin

The New York Times / January 20, 2008

Remembering the Royalton

Mourning Phiippe Starck's Miracle on 44th Street

Interior Design / September 21, 2007

Restoring Louis Kahn's

The Yale University Art Gallery gets an extensive, but faithful, renovation

The New York Times / November 7, 2004

Robert Irwin's 'Barcelona Pavilion for the 21st Century'

A thrilling installation at the Dia Center for the Arts explores tranlucency; it's like seeing snow for the first time.

Blueprint / December 1998

Santiago Calatrava's Four Billion Dollar Mall

A review of the World Trade Center "Transit Hub"

Blueprint / July 17, 2016

Santiago Calatrava, from the Canary Islands to Manhattan Island

Santiago Calatrava's opera house at Santa Cruz de Tenerife in the Canary Islands is dominated by a winglike canopy nearly 200 feet tall.

The New York Times / October 26, 2003

Shaving My Wallet Better Than My Face

Falling for the Infinity Razor

The New York Times / April 13, 2007

Starchitects on the Buildings That Influenced Them Most

Ando, Meier, Scott Brown, Decq, and others talk about their inspirations

Architectural Record / April 13, 2016

Stitching Together a New Life in Riverdale

Surviving the Holocaust with needle and thread

The New York Times / August 8, 2008

Sweet Sixteen Acres

My assessment of Ground Zero, in 2018

Log / October 1, 2018

Take-Off

A review of The Full Monty on Broadway

The Independent on Sunday (London) / October 29, 2000

Taking a Holistic Approach to Embodied Carbon

A sobering look at how designing a building to meet Passive House standards affects its overall energy use.

Architectural Record / October 10, 2022

Taking credit for trees planted elsewhere is a whole lot of embodied chutzpah

Can a house alone on a mountainside in British Columbia possibly be “climate positive,” as its architects and developer claim?

Dezeen / June 18, 2021

The Death of Nest

A quirky magazine's farewell

The New York Times / August 17, 2004

The End of Sixties Architecture

Some buildings just couldn't be saved

The New York Times / October 31, 2004

The Ethereal Architecture of Sou Fujimoto

Perhaps Japan's most innovative architect, Fujimoto makes buildings that resemble clouds and forests.

The Wall Street Journal / October 18, 2014

The House That Harry Potter Built

A magical new building in SoHo

The Independent on Sunday (London) / July 10, 2000

The Innovative Brooklyn Architects Paving the Way for a New Generation

Fourteen years after founding their experimental practice, the architects of SO–IL hit their stride

Architectural Digest / February 14, 2022

The Man With the List at Architecture's Party

Profile of Reed Kroloff, an advisor to architecture competitions.

The New York Times / January 11, 2003

The Many Dimensions of Roberto Burle Marx

Should the great landscape architect be recognized for more than his astounding parks and gardens?

Architect / April 10, 2016

The Men from Bubbling Magma

Climbing a volcano in Bali.

The Washington Post / June 14, 1998

The Parenting of Low Expectations

Foreword to "52 Weeks of Parenting Wisdom: Effective Strategies for Raising Respectful, Happy Kids" by Meg Akabas

52 Weeks of Parenting Wisdom / December 13, 2012

The Punctured Sky: New York's Architectural Heritage

A history of New York City architecture: the last 150 years in 4,500 words

Books / April 16, 2008

The Side of North Korea That Isn't Making Headlines

A country of candy-colored architecture. Who knew? (Oliver Wainwright did.)

Introspective (1stdibs) / July 28, 2018

The Town the Boom Forgot

Tired of high real estate prices? Consider the alternative

The New York Times / June 25, 2006

The Undaunting Courage of Rio's Gay Crusader

The late David Miranda, in his prime

Out / May 11, 2018

The World Is Going to Hear of This Boy

An interview with Leah Adler, Steven Spielberg's mother

The Jewish Mothers' Hall of Fame / December 15, 1990

This Child Does Have Two Mothers... And a Sperm Donor with Visitation

NYU Review of Law and Social Change / November 4, 1995

To Live or Die Inside: Introduction to Unatanneh Tokef

What does it mean to be "inscribed in the book of life?" My interpretation.

Speeches / talks / October 4, 2016

Treacherous Transparencies: Thoughts and Observations Triggered by a Visit to Farnsworth House

In 2014, after accepting the inaugural Mies Crown Hall Americas Prize from the Illinois Institute of Technology, Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron drove from Chicago to Plano, Illinois, to visit -- and criticize -- Mies van der Rohe’s iconic Farnsworth House 

Architectural Record / November 1, 2016

Turning Steel Into Lace

Living rent-free, Cal Lane makes her mark

The New York Times / January 20, 2008

U.S. Flops at Shanghai Expo

Another embarrassing U.S. pavilion, courtesy of a shortsighted Congress

Los Angeles Times / August 5, 2010

Unloading His Books, But Not His Conscience

Amazon is now the place to sell used books -- but with unexpected consequences

The New York Times / April 11, 2002

Up in the Attic, Millennium Style

Gorgeous interiors, up (under) the roof

The New York Times / March 29, 2007

What Price Honor?

A temple to honor at the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs damages perhaps the greatest modernist campus in the world. And it's by the campus's original architect, SOM

Architectural Record / January 8, 2016

When Modern Married Money

Blue blood meets white architecture in New England.

The New York Times / February 3, 2002

Where Are All the 60's Buildings Going?

Baby boomers lead the charge to tear down 60's architecture

The New York Times / October 31, 2004

Why Architecture Critics Must Ask About Embodied Energy

Because our lives depend on it!

Architect / October 31, 2019

Why Patti Smith and I Like the Smithsonian

Because of Hide/Seek, its brave and beautiful show on sexual identity

Out / December 14, 2010

Will the U.S. Be at the 2010 Shanghai Fair?

A world's fair pavilion costs less than an Apache helicopter -- and Shanghai 2010 is approaching

Architecture / August 6, 2004

World on a String

A puppeteer copes with Parkinson's disease

The New York Times / November 19, 2003