What’s Happening: A new exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art highlights a dozen public architecture projects that paint an idealized picture of New York’s post-pandemic future.

The Download: The way New Yorkers approach public space has shifted dramatically since the pandemic. Restaurants built dining sheds outside to survive, angering some cantankerous locals who view them as unsightly rat magnets. Office towers, once emblematic of the city’s economic dominance, still sit eerily deserted. In a city where every inch of space comes at a premium, issues of public space garner an impassioned response from locals, yet are saddled with bureaucracy—which may explain why the mayor recently appointed the city’s first chief public realm officer.

In the aftermath of these shifts, architects are grappling with the public realm’s newfound significance—and are tailoring their latest projects as such. Twelve examples are highlighted in “Architecture Now: New York, New Publics,” an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art that explores how local firms are redrawing our relationship with metropolitan architecture. “Can this context catalyze the transformation of civic space and the public realm in New York?” asks Martino Stierli, who curated the exhibition alongside Evangelos Kotsioris and Paula Vilaplana de Miguel. “How can innovative architecture attempt to redress structural inequities and foster social transformation?”

The projects on view offer a decent starting point. Ranging in scale from tiny to giant and conceptual to concrete, each seeks to prioritize “inclusion and participation in the daily life of the city,” according to a press release. There’s the Kinfolk Foundation’s Monuments Project, which uses augmented reality to superimpose virtual monuments of overlooked Black leaders over the city’s most notorious statues of slaveholders. Agency–Agency and Chris Woebken Studio recast the city’s inaccessible fire hydrants as whimsical watering holes and sprinkler playgrounds thanks to “prosthetic devices” made from plumbing components. There’s no denying the delights in reimagining public amenities for everyone to enjoy.

Yet there’s room for improvement. Many such projects are positioned as benefiting loosely defined “local communities” yet ignore the perils of the city’s relentless gentrification and accessibility issues. Mariana Mogilevich questions who stands to benefit from constructing a retractable roof over the dilapidated “People’s Pool” in Bedford-Stuyvesant, a Brooklyn neighborhood that reportedly lost 22,000 Black residents and gained 30,000 white ones per the 2020 census.

Olalekan Jeyifous’s subway station murals offer a kind gesture to the melting pot of communities in Sunset Park, one of New York’s most ethnically diverse locales, but the system’s poor track record with accessibility suggests more urgent interventions. Ditto for Peterson Rich Office’s well-intentioned proposal to tack on balconies to public housing structures, many of which lack heat and functioning elevators.

While the projects on view are seemingly unobjectionable and in the public interest, the exhibition seems to ignore the harsh reality of public realm improvements: years of seeking funding, navigating red tape, and enduring political squabbles with NIMBYs. In other words, they’re presented in a vacuum of social context that ignores matters of who wants them, who hates them, who pays for them, who will use them, and how stakeholders will ultimately overcome these obstacles. “These thorny questions lie at the heart of public architecture and distinguish a profoundly elegant project from one that’s merely pretty,” critic Justin Davidson writes in Curbed. Then again, should museums be expected to reveal how the painting was made?

In Their Own Words: “Now, imagine murals in every subway station—but also elevators, allowing folks in wheelchairs, people with strollers, and everyone else to actually move freely around the city—and well-distributed, healthy spaces to educate future generations to respect the environment and each other,” Mogilevich writes for Architectural Record. “These would still be small but meaningful ways of imagining a city where we can face problems collectively and build a new world out of the ruins of this one.”

Surface Says: The drawbacks to public architecture remind us of a classic Clueless quote: “It’s like a painting, see? From far away, it’s okay, but up close, it’s a big old mess.”

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Each year, NFT Paris brings world-class programming centered around NFTs and the creative community to the City of Lights. Starting tomorrow, the conference returns to the Grand Palais for two days of immersive programming, during which digital art marketplace SuperRare and DAO-governed AI art generator Botto will bring NFT art to enthusiasts citywide.

Highlights include a booth exhibition of works created by machine learning artist Mario Klingemann and Botto. On Feb. 25, SuperRare Labs co-founder Jonathan Perkins will lend his voice to a panel on the ways in which DAOs stand to impact the future of creative fields while SuperRare Spaces Daata and IHAM gallery will host auxiliary exhibitions respectively titled “Blind Spot” and “Lines Like Life” offsite.

All eyes have been on Daniel Lee since the Bottega Veneta alum was appointed chief creative officer of Burberry. For many a fashion-world insider, Lee seemed like an ideal match for the British label—he grew up in West Yorkshire, England, close to Burberry’s mills, studied at Central Saint Martins in London, and won four British Fashion Awards in 2019 for his work at Bottega. Much is riding on Lee’s success at Burberry, whose influence waned under its most recent creative director, Riccardo Tisci, and which leaned into its British heritage by debuting a new royal-blue knight-on-horseback logo.

Lee’s enthusiasm for Burberry’s signature “Britishness” was infectious during his first runway show at London Fashion Week—even with no beige in sight. “What’s unique about London and why I’m so happy to be back is I’m so inspired all the time,” Lee told press backstage. “When you walk down the street you see people from so many different walks of life living together.” Electric hues dominated gabardine trench coats, plaid blanket skirts, and wool military overcoats, as if he dipped signature Burberry garments in psychedelic dye. The most important look of all? A long-sleeve T-shirt, emblazoned with the words “winds of change.” Vivienne Westwood, to whom the show was dedicated, likely would have agreed.

Javier Robles fully embodies the title of global citizen. The architect and designer, whose namesake firm has established offices in both New York City and Miami, is enjoying a growing portfolio of residential and cultural commissions spanning four continents and counting. He’s submitted proposals for projects as varied as Atlantic City’s Holocaust memorial and the Grand Egyptian Museum in Egypt. His commissions include a field school at Egypt’s archeological excavation site Amheida for Columbia University’s Classics department. Meanwhile, his lighting, furniture, and objects studio Lumifer serves a global clientele in luxury residential and hospitality markets.

“My work has been molded by my experiences exploring and living in different countries, cities, languages, landscapes, and cultures,” says Robles, who studied architecture at both the University of São Paulo and Columbia University. “From an early age, I considered myself a foreigner—even when I was growing up in Peru. When I left my homeland at age 17, I embraced with passion the life of a nomad.”

Last week, Serpentine hosted its annual Frieze LA reception at the West Hollywood home of Serpentine Council members Sybil Robson Orr and Matthew Orr. An intimate group of artists, curators, collectors, and philanthropists gathered to fête the gallery under a James Turrell Skyspace while enjoying music provided by DJ Mia Moretti.

When was it? Feb. 15

Where was it? West Hollywood

Who was there? Hans Ulrich Obrist, Lauren Halsey, Aurora James, Nikolai Haas, Bettina Korek, Ralph Nauta, Alex Israel, Mickalene Thomas, and more.

When: Until April 23

Where: Claremont Lewis Museum of Art

What: Harvesting wood sourced from felled magnolia and pine trees after a major wind storm, the Claremont-based artisan showcases a fresh array of seven primordial, dolmen-like pieces that hover in the space between sculptural form and functional object. The resulting chairs, side tables, stools, and totems are proof that new life can be created from incredible destruction and loss—some pieces feature salvaged Old Growth Redwood, a rare wood nearly destroyed in Northern California’s extreme forest fires with soot visible on each piece.

The poignant films of Suneil Sanzgiri reckon with the tumultuous legacies of colonialism in the Indian state of Goa. Despite tackling important topics, the Indian-American filmmaker has never shown his work in a solo exhibition. That will change later this year when he’ll bring his filmic works to life at the Brooklyn Museum as part of the fourth annual UOVO Prize. Recognizing the talents of emerging Brooklyn artists with a $25,000 cash grant, the accolade will also see Sanzgiri revamp the 50-by-50-foot facade of the art storage provider’s newly opened Bushwick building with a giant 3D-generated image that charts new creative territory.

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RIOS is an international design collective working beyond boundaries to inventively combine disciplines and amplify the impact of design. Combined, the firm’s talents comprise a wide range of professional skills including architecture, landscape, urban planning, interior design, video, graphics and signage, experiential, and product design. Its work is irreversibly connected to the narrative of place and the complex order of human culture, creating solutions that are joyful, authentic, and unexpected.

Surface Says: Across residences, workplaces, and public space commissions, RIOS has a knack for connecting people to nature in breathtaking ways.

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