Ian Volner

New York

Freelance Journalist and Writer at Freelance

Design writer for The Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker, Harper’s inter alia. New book "Jorge Pardo: Public Projects” out now from @PetzelGallery

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Articles

The Frick reopens after a yearslong renovation by Selldorf Architects

3 weeks ago | archpaper.com | Ian Volner |Kristine Klein

Rockefeller had more of it. Mellon did more with it. Barnes had more interesting ideas about it. But in the annals of great early 20th-century art collectors, no other plutocratic culture vulture quite measures up to Henry Clay Frick—not, at least, when it came to an eye for the good stuff.
RECORD Talks with Carlo Ratti, Curator of the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale

4 weeks ago | architecturalrecord.com | Ian Volner |Carlo Ratti

Architecture NewsInterviews Curating the Venice Architecture Biennale is never an easy job. At the best of times, the role entails a hefty logistical lift, marshaling some 750 participants from around the world and then bringing them together on a tiny, damp, expensive island. But in the present global situation, with cultural and economic conflict seemingly at every hand, it takes a special kind of daring to stage-manage architecture’s biggest international show.
Travis Jeppesen around Venice Gallery Weekend 2025

1 month ago | artforum.com | Travis Jeppesen |Jacoba Urist |Davida Fernandez-Barkan |Ian Volner

Store and/or access information on a device Cookies, device or similar online identifiers (e.g. login-based identifiers, randomly assigned identifiers, network based identifiers) together with other information (e.g. browser type and information, language, screen size, supported technologies etc.) can be stored or read on your device to recognise it each time it connects to an app or to a website, for one or several of the purposes presented here.
The English Design Company Established & Sons Embraces a Reset

1 month ago | nytimes.com | Ian Volner

One pandemic, a number of Brexit-related disruptions and a few more staff switches later (Mr. Wrong left again two years ago, this time for the office-design specialists Orangebox), and today Established & Sons is ready to show that it has learned the fundamentals.
Building Culture by Julian Rose

1 month ago | artforum.com | Ian Volner

On Julian Rose’s Building CultureBuilding Culture: Sixteen Architects on How Museums Are Shaping the Future of Art, Architecture, and Public Space, by Julian Rose. Princeton Architectural Press, 2024. 368 pages.
A New Exhibition at MoMA Showcases Change-Stimulating Design Objects

Jan 27, 2025 | architecturalrecord.com | Ian Volner

For the Museum of Modern Art—the institution more responsible than any other for the development of American design in the last century—every show about objects, graphics, and the way we interact with them is charged with special import. So, what meaning, exactly, are we to extract from the just-debuted exhibition Pirouette: Turning Points in Design? Apparently, that’s up to us. “I didn’t want to preach,” said curator Paola Antonelli, speaking at the preview event last week.
Traffic | Dezeen

Jan 6, 2025 | dezeen.com | Ellen Eberhardt |Ian Volner |Rose Etherington

New York City has become the first city in the US to charge a toll for vehicles entering the city during peak traffic areas in an attempt to reduce congestion, pollution and to provide funds for the city's public transportation. More
Book review: Where on Earth are we going? This map historian isn’t sure.

Dec 27, 2024 | dailypress.com | Ian Volner

In times like these, it can be hard to know which way is up. But it’s always been a subject of debate: For the 16th-century cartographer Juan de la Cosa, the top of the map was west, in the direction of his first voyage with Christopher Columbus. Nearly 500 years later, Stuart McArthur of Melbourne, Australia, produced a map with a southward orientation; when his teacher reprimanded him, he held his ground, finally publishing his upside-down map in 1979.
Clad in Terra-Cotta Fins, UPenn’s Expanded Graduate School of Education Fits in with Its Neighbors

Nov 21, 2024 | architecturalrecord.com | Ian Volner

“It’s a terra-cotta precinct,” says architect Josh Aisenberg. For sheer concision, the two-word description of the rough, ruddy campus architecture of the University of Pennsylvania seems right on the money—and it should be, given the source.
Jerry Brotton's book delves into the history, significance of the compass

Nov 18, 2024 | business-standard.com | Ian Volner

In times like these, it can be hard to know which way is up. But it's always been a subject of debate: For the 16th-century cartographer Juan de la Cosa, the top of the map was west, in the direction of his first voyage with Christopher Columbus. Nearly 500 years later, Stuart McArthur of Melbourne, Australia, produced a map with a southward orientation; when his teacher reprimanded him, he held his ground, finally publishing his upside-down map in 1979.