Justin Davidson

1 month ago | curbed.com | Justin Davidson

Annabelle Selldorf’s gentle intervention is a relief. The low-key new strcuture peers — but does not loom — over Henry Clay Frick’s 1914 mansion. The low-key new strcuture peers — but does not loom — over Henry Clay Frick’s 1914 mansion. In a word: phew. More than a decade after declaring its intention to undergo major reconstruction, and five years after treatment began, the Frick is back, intact and resplendent.

2 months ago | curbed.com | Justin Davidson

Gluck+’s Washington Heights–Inwood Music Community Charter School. Being demoralized about the state of architecture is like sitting in a beanbag chair: It’s an easy position to slump into and a struggle to get out of. A decade ago, the architect Reinier de Graaf published an essay that seethed with dismay.

2 months ago | curbed.com | Justin Davidson

64 University Place, KPF’s stacked and stepped arcade of shallow arches. It’s not all Richard Meier’s fault, but I blame him anyway. The now nonagenarian architect of the Getty Museum in Los Angeles transformed New York about 25 years ago, when he designed three glass-skinned apartment buildings that line up along West Street between Perry and Charles like TVs stacked in a big-box store, an assortment of hi-res lives flickering on every floor.

2 months ago | vulture.com | Justin Davidson

From the Met’s production of Moby-Dick. After 15 years of sailing from house to house, the Pequod has finally floated into the Met, its splintering wood, freezing iron, and sodden ropes transfigured into digital drawing. Moby-Dick, an opera by librettist Gene Scheer and composer Jake Heggie has been performed widely enough (in Dallas, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Washington) since its 2010 premiere that it qualifies as a semi-classic, and Leonard Foglia’s production, too, arrives well-used.

2 months ago | nymag.com | Justin Davidson

When New York Times reporters describe the effect that President Trump is having on Washington culture, political stability, international trade, and federal departments, they routinely turn to the trusty verb upend. It's a preening gym rat of a word, in that it's weaker than it looks. At first encounter, it implies a tantrum or violent disruption - a losing player overturning a Monopoly board in pique, say, or the S.S. Poseidon capsizing.