June 2025: Junction Making, Camp Life, and a new exhibition on mid-century modernism
Plus new books in the studio about speculative design, graphic design education, Mexican architecture, and more!
Last month, we spoke with urbanist and writer Sarah Ichioka about moving beyond sustainable design practices and super-curator Hans Ulrich Obrist about the role of conversation in his work.
EDITOR’S NOTE
Happy (almost) Summer! We wrapped up this season of episodes with two really special episodes. First, I talked with Sarah Ichioka, a writer and urbanist I’ve come really admire over the last year about her book, Flourish, and how we can combine ecological thinking, strategy, and mindset shifts to rethink the role of the designer. To wrap up our season, I talked to a personal hero of mine, Hans Ulrich Obrist. Obrist’s interview project has long been a touchstone for me in creating this podcast and his books on curation have shaped my thinking about my own work. It was an honor to have him on the show to talk about curation (and editing) as a type of junction-making. On the publishing side, we had a busy month on the site, culminating in a bonus interview with Andrew Blauvelt for members about his new exhibition on mid-century modernism. Links to all our stories are below.
For the website Untapped, I wrote a very personal essay about my time living on a summer camp when I was a child. It’s the most biographical thing I’ve ever published and one I’m really proud of. I hope you like it.
As a reminder, we are taking the summer off from releasing new episodes but will be sharing some old favorites over the next few months. We’ll also continue publishing original stories, members-only interviews, and other content on our website. All this work is made possible because of paid subscriptions. If you like what we do here and want to support us, you can upgrade your subscription for just $5/month or $50/year. Paid members get bonus interviews each month and help keep the show free for everyone, all the time. Thanks for listening.
See you next month,
Jarrett
SCRATCH
Recent essays, interviews, and stories published on our Scratch platform.
Eventually Everything Connects: Andrew Satake Blauvelt on mid-century modernism and his ongoing critical project
For this month's member's only interview, we caught up with Andrew Satake Blauvelt to talk about his new exhibition at the Cranbrook Art Museum and how it connects to his larger critical project.
The useless, beautiful, and poetic things of the world by James Dyer
A review of the new book by photographer Daan Paans.
Affairs of Plain Living by Jarrett Earnest
An excerpt by Jarrett Earnest from Making Home, the publication for this year’s Cooper Hewitt Design Triennial.
Jeffrey Ludlow’s Favorite Books Blend Design, Theory, and Culture
The award winning designer’s new book explores the humble and under-theorized sign.
PAST GUESTS
Recent work, writing, and news from former guests of Scratching the Surface.
👏 Congratulations to Alexandra Lange on winning the 2025 Pulitzer Prize in Criticism!
☕️ Elizabeth Diller’s DS+R turns Venice canal into coffee, clinches top biennale prize. (ArtNet)
🍷 Can robots make the perfect Aperol Spritz? Oliver Wainwright’s Venice Architecture Biennale 2025 review. (The Guardian)
📚 Two Striking New Libraries, Inviting in Different Ways: Justin Davidson on new libraries in Far Rockaway and New Lots. (Curbed)
🏊 Michael Kimmelman on how a stunning new pool in Cenral Park might help heal old wounds. (NYT)
🌸 James Voorhies on the queer urgency of ‘a field of bloom and hum.’ (Frieze)
⏰ Elvia Wick visits the Venice Biennale and unearths her 2015 interview with curator Carlo Ratti. (Fast Writing)
🎓 ”You’ll Do Fine If You Believe ‘I Do My Best.’” Steven Heller was the 2025 commencement speaker at SVA. (SVA).
✏️ Rob Giampietro spoke about his 20 years in design as part of the Elisava Masters’ Talks. (YouTube)
🎁 Mimi Zeiger thinks about 20 years of Playlab. (PIN-UP)
🖼️ Jack Murphy interviews Julian Rose and András Szántó about interviewing art-focused architects (The Architect’s Newspaper)
🌱 Justin Beal on how the third installment in Alan Weisman’s trilogy examines the built environment’s relationship with the current ecological crisis. (The Architect’s Newspaper)
🏛️Essex Hemphill and the Washington, DC That Was: Ian Bourland reviews a new exhibition of the poet’s radical networks. (Frieze)
BOOK ROUNDUP
Recent books that have arrived in the studio. All links are Bookshop.org affiliate links. If you order through Bookshop, we get some money to help support the show!
A *Co-* Program for Graphic Design by David Reinfert
The followup to graphic designer David Reinfurt’s popular 2019 book, this new “textbook” features three new classes from Reinfurt’s curriculum at Princeton. C-i-r-c-u-l-a-t-i-o-n, M-u-l-t-p-l-i-c-i-t-y, and R-e-s-e-a-r-c-h were developed explicitly in the context of remote teaching and in light of urgent realignments around whose stories get told and who does the telling, somehow expanding even more the ideas of what graphic designers can do.
Not Here, Not Now by Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby
The latest book from the famed speculative designers Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby is described as a conceptual travelogue, bringing together words, images, and objects that “capture, in design form, some of the ideas encountered along the way.”
Beautiful Madness: Art Writing as Art Curating by Mark Kremer
An accumulation of the writing from art curator, writer, and teacher Mark Kremer from 1993 to 2023, and structured around five themes: trace, gesture, rudiment, polyphony, and fortitude, this book is both an exploration of the intersections of writing and curating and a handbook for those of us who want to rethinking what curation might mean.
Gert Dumbar: Gentleman Maverick of Dutch Design by Max Bruinsma and Leonie Ten Duis
Gert Dumbar is perhaps one of the most influential graphic designers from the postwar design field, most famous for his studio Studio Dumbar. This wide-ranging book considers his influence and the various roles Gert played: artist, provocateur, design director, student, teacher, cultural initiator, and mediator.
Casa Mexicana by Jonathan Bell and Edmund Sumner
Architectural photography Edmund Sumner has rounded up the best examples of domestic architecture in Mexico from the last decade. Paired with writing from Jonathan Bell, this book features twenty-six houses that showcase the trends and themes of Mexican architecture today.
READ/WATCHED/HEARD
Articles, books, videos, and other ephemera that caught our eye this month.
📆 Paperwork: An Interview with Karel Martens and the Martens and Martens Studio (Harvard GSD)
🪦 Hans Noe, architect, sculptor, and proprietor of Fanelli Cafe, dies at 96. (NYT)
🤔 Jony Ive, Apple’s longtime design chief, is collaborating with OpenAi on mysterious new AI-powered devices. (OpenAI)
🥰 Jason Fulford on why Italian Polymath Bruno Munari still sparks joy. (Aperture)
POSTSCRIPT
My favorite thing that I read this month was Julian Lucas’s New Yorker profile of multidisciplinary artist Lorna Simpson. I was very familiar with her photographic and collage work but less so with her sculptural pieces. Reading the piece had me revisiting her entire body of work and I’ve become completely taken with these sculptures. Above is a detail of her 2021 series, Stacked Stones/Vibrating Cycles.