June 2024: Aesthetics, Never-Built Architecture, remembering Barbara Stauffacher Solomon
Welcome to the new Scratching the Surface newsletter!
In May, we spoke with the director of the Architectural Association Ingrid Schroder about experimentation in design education and writer and artist Leonard Koren about bookmaking and creative processes.
EDITOR’S NOTE
Dear friends,
Welcome to the first edition of the new Scratching the Surface newsletter. I’ve been writing a version of this newsletter for the last five years for paying members and for the first time, we’re opening it up to everyone, right here on Substack. What you’ll find in each issue is a recap of our published output from the last month—new episodes and published stories—as well as roundups of new writing from former guests, design news, good reads, and book roundups. I always have fun putting these together and am excited to see what comes from it with a public audience. I imagine the format will change a bit as we go on.
This newsletter, along with Scratching the Surface and Scratch — our publishing platform — are made possible because of supporters to our Patreon. If you like this work and want to see more of what we do out in the world, consider joining us over there. Members get early episodes, bonus interviews, and more exclusive content. You can support this work by clicking here.
We’ve just released our final episode of the Spring season and heading into a summer break. We’re not going dark through: we’ll be rebroadcasting old episodes through August and will return in September with new programming as well as continuing to publish stories, bonus interviews, and more over on Scratch.
Thanks, as always, for listening, reading, and following along. If you find this newsletter useful, consider forwarding it to a friend or supporting us on Patreon. If you have pitches, guest suggestions, or want to chat, leave us a note.
Until next month,
Jarrett
SCRATCH
Recent essays, interviews, and stories published on our Scratch platform.
What can we learn from buildings never built?
Sam Lubell and Greg Goldin share five never-built buildings from their new book, The Atlas of Never-Built Architecture.
Making Modern Design in Japan
The story behind the most important Japanese design publication of it is time, by Gennifer Weisenfeld.
PAST GUESTS
Recent work, writing, and news from former guests of Scratching the Surface.
⚫️ Glenn Adamson on the Hirschhorn Museum’s 50th anniversary.
🕸️ For the New Yorker, Kyle Chayka writes about the revenge of the homepage.
🚪 In the Are.na Annual, David Reinfurt writes about entrances.
🏞️ For Untapped, Karrie Jacobs asks how long human-designed landscapes should last.
📦 For Places Journal, Shannon Mattern looks at the cardboard box as media.
✅ Jack Cheng built a simple iOS app for capturing notes as text files.
🏙️ On Curbed, Justin Davidson writes about SO-IL’s Brooklyn apartment projects.
✋ For Datebook, Alison Arieff reviews Sam Lubell and Greg Goldin’s new book, The Atlas of Never-Built Architecture.
🕺In August, Alexandra Lange writes about Cerebrum, the 1960s New York dance club.
📺 Edwin Heathcote on how screens took over new architecture.
✌️ Oliver Wainwright on the fake town where America practices war.
🎓 Eddie Opara delivers commencement address at Parsons The New School of Design.
🦸♀️ In her newsletter Torched (how did I miss this?), Alissa Walker remembers Barbara Stauffacher Solomon.
JOB WATCH
Tracking new jobs, appointments, and career moves in and around the design industries.
The School of Design at University of Illinois Chicago appointed Anne H. Berry as its new Director.
Jose Castillo named next chair of Cornell AAP’s department of architecture.
READ/WATCH/HEARD
Articles, books, videos, and other ephemera that caught our eye this month.
🧠 Carlo Ratti shares his curatorial vision for the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale.
🏆 Harvard GSD announced its 2025 Loeb Fellows and the departure of Fellowship curator John Peterson. Jack Murphy interviewed Peterson for The Architect’s Newspaper.
🏃🏻 A museum director is running to be mayor of Florence.
✏️ "The art of criticism, like the art of handwriting, is all but lost," writes Elizabeth Farrelly.
POSTSCRIPT
On a Saturday in the summer of 2016, after spending time at the then-Met Breuer, I was about to enter the subway when I was immediately struck by this subway sign at the 68th Street/Hunter College station. I had never seen it before, but I was blown away by its style—the fun, retro typography and that great S that turns into an arrow. I didn’t know who designed it. I took this photo and posted it on Twitter which set off a quest to find the designer. Curbed took up the challenge and discovered it was the great graphic designer and landscape architect Barbara Stauffacher Solomon, who died this month in San Francisco at 95. Everyone is posting photos of her best-known work, the supergraphics at Sea Ranch—and deservedly so—but this typography will always hold a special place in my heart. RIP.