CATEGORIES

Architecture Lobby

All is not perfectly well in the world of architecture, and this advocacy group is looking to improve it.

How The Happiness Industry Has Hijacked Virtually Every Facet Of Contemporary Life

The Architecture of Happiness was a trite book published in the mid-2000s and mercifully forgotten. Our Happy Life: Architecture and Well-Being in the Age of Emotional Capitalism, a new exhibition at the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) in Montreal, isn’t nearly as snappily titled, but as an enterprise, it is far more probing and curious. Curated by Francesco Garutti, the show explores how, after the 2008 financial crash, the “happiness industry”—comprising government initiatives, economic indices, and city rankings— hijacked virtually every facet of contemporary life.Metropolis’s Samuel Medina spoke to Garutti about happiness as a social project, the “cold intimacy” of Instagram, and architecture’s new spaces of meaning.

development diamond in the sky

zaha hadid architects blends the historic and the futuristic for the antwerp port authority’s new headquarters.

A Tough Stance

At 50 years old, Boston City Hall is one of the most polarizing buildings in America. Building upgrades and revitalization plans hope to change that, but they mistake what the architecture stood for.

Don't Fight The Building

Andrew Zobler, CEO of developer Sydell Group, sees value in investing in history.

Anatomy - A View From The Switch

The designer of the Noon Smart Lighting System reveals the thinking behind the unit’s streamlined, DIY-friendly design.

Materials Spontaneous Construction

The Bouroullec brothers’ new rug benefits from a special technique that ensures beauty and durability—and a bit of randomness.

Hospitality - Creative Quarters

For its newest property in Chicago’s booming downtown, Ace Hotel makes art central to its design.

Development - High And Tight

Cornell Tech’s towering 352-unit apartment building on Roosevelt Island sets a Passive House record.

Back To Basics

Everlane’s new Soho flagship, the e-tailer’s first brick-and-mortar store, embraces its ethos of transparency.

Retail - Lighting The Beacon

Edina, Minnesota, is home to a massive—yet somehow nondescript—living relic of architectural history: the first modern mall, Victor Gruen’s 1956 Southdale Center. Innovative at the time, the mall is inward facing, with stores contributing to a new kind of communal plaza. But today, at the Galleria Edina, another mall just across the street, a new Design Within Reach (DWR) store aims to break away from this inward-focused architecture.

Architecture In A New Light

Built in 1986, New York’s 599 Lexington Avenue has been widely regarded as one of the famed architect Edward Larrabee Barnes’s greatest skyscrapers.

Materials A Solid Refresh

DuPont Corian builds on a legacy of innovation with its biggest release of new colors.

Rapid Response

Cultural institutions can often be imperious, even aloof. But the current “regime” change has galvanized them to pursue quick action.

Social Connector

A new residential tower by Studio Gang fosters neighborly interaction through imaginative architectural form.

The Beauty of Nothing

With technology derived from watchmaking, Vitrocsa’s structural glass systems help architects inch closer to the Modernist vision of invisible walls.

Materials Curtain Wall

Shildan’s Fabrik rainscreen system is flexible in more ways than one.

Materials Quiet Craters

A new acoustic lighting product brings multi functionality and an outer-space-inspired aesthetic to spruce up the workplace.

Spectrum

An essential survey of architecture and design today

Architecture

Flex Space

Culture

Past the Post

Development On Higher Ground

Nearly a decade after severe flooding inundated the University of Iowa’s campus, its music department is reunited in a new building by LMN Architects that is both a technological and civic asset.

New Talent Studio Gorm

An appreciation of the beauty in an object’s true function drives the work of Studio Gorm.

T Is For Talent

Metropolis showcased four emerging talents in a vibrant installation at NeoCon 2017.

Is Fashion Modern?

On the eve of the Museum of Modern Art’s landmark exhibition on the past, present, and future of fashion, Metropolis VP of design Paul Makovsky spoke to MoMA’s senior curator Paola Antonelli about why she chose to put on a show about garments, why Bernard Rudofsky (who curated MoMA’s first show on fashion back in 1944) remains as relevant as ever, and the challenges of selecting fashion objects that have had a strong impact on the world.

Float Studio

Adeptly avoiding the clichés so commonly associated with office design for start-ups, Float Studio instead creates spaces that capture each company’s founding essence—all on a tight budget.

Lukas Peet

With an approach that synthesizes pragmatism and whimsy, Lukas Peet’s designs reconsider the complexities of lighting and how it fills a space.

A Floor's Best Friend

A new coating by Armstrong Flooring harnesses the power of diamonds for added protection and beauty.

Outward Facing

In their conversion of a storage facility to high-end residences in New York’s West Village, CookFox Architects paid special attention to the outdoor areas and the neighborhood beyond.

Tower Of Power

Skylab Architecture’s Yard leads Portland’s east side into a taller future—and a citywide conversation.