Feb. 26, 2021
For 90 years, the name of the publisher McGraw-Hill, rendered in intricate Art Deco terra-cotta lettering, has adorned the crown of the eponymous blue-green modernist building on West 42nd Street, which rose above a scraggly tenement neighborhood during the Great Depression.
Even after the company left in the early 1970s for a skyscraper at 48th Street and the Avenue of the Americas, the name continued to embroider the Hell’s Kitchen skyline. The building was designated a city landmark in 1979, and just last year a restoration of the 35-story tower’s distinctive terra-cotta cladding won an award from the New York Landmarks Conservancy, which praised the way the “11-foot-tall Deco style ‘McGraw-Hill’ sign was stripped to reveal the preserved original glaze.”
After the Riot, Whatâs the Future of Art in the Capitol?
Built largely by enslaved people, the building includes just one small object honoring their work.
Thomas Jefferson, Relief Portrait, C. Paul Jennewein, Marble, 1950.Credit.Architect of the Capitol
In the culture wars that spilled over during President Donald Trumpâs time in office, the most visible flash point was whether to preserve or destroy monuments depicting figures from Americaâs racist history.
The former president even went so far as to veto a military spending bill because it included a provision to rename bases commemorating Confederate officials. (Congress overrode the veto.)
Art Mystery Solved: Who Wrote on Edvard Munchâs âThe Screamâ?
The authorship of the tiny inscription, âCould only have been painted by a madman,â was disputed. Curators in Oslo say the artist definitely wrote it himself. (But why?)
Edvard Munchâs âThe Scream.âCredit.National Museum of Norway
By Nina Siegal
Feb. 21, 2021
Edvard Munchâs âThe Scream,â from 1893, is one of the worldâs most famous paintings, but for years art historians have mostly ignored a tiny inscription, written in pencil, at the upper left corner of its frame, reading: âCould only have been painted by a madman.â
Who wrote the sentence there? Some thought a disgruntled viewer might have vandalized the work while it was in a gallery; others imagined it was the artist himself who had jotted the enigmatic sentence. But then why?
A Fight to Save a Corporate Campus Intertwined With Nature
The Weyerhaeuser site near Seattle, praised for its balance of building and landscape, is at the center of a battle between conservationists and a developer.
The former corporate campus and headquarters of the timber company Weyerhaeuser in Federal Way, Wash. A developer wants to add industrial buildings to the campus.Credit.Grant Hindsley for The New York Times
Published Feb. 12, 2021Updated Feb. 19, 2021
Protests often erupt over proposals to demolish or even alter historic buildings. Threats to landscaping usually get far less attention.
But that’s changing in a Seattle suburb, where a developer plans to build on the corporate campus that George H. Weyerhaeuser created for his family’s timberland and wood products company beginning in the late 1960s.
Whatâs It Like to Sleep in a Hexagon?
After buying an awkward 1960s house with a clumsy 1980s addition, a couple set about dragging the lakefront property into the 21st century.
Feb. 9, 2021
When Don and Lou Ann McLean bought a hexagonal home on the edge of Lake Austin in 2013, they loved the 1.3-acre waterfront lot. But they were hesitant about the house, which was built in the 1960s and had the feel of a rustic lodge.
The structure, propped up on columns above a site that plummeted to the water, had few redeeming qualities after being sliced up into a series of awkward spaces over the years and extended with a clumsy 1980s addition.