Alexandra Lange

Alexandra Lange is an American architecture and design critic and author based in New York.^[1] The author of a series of critically acclaimed books, Lange is the architecture critic for Curbed. She has bylines published in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Atlantic, Metropolis, Architect magazine, Architectural Digest; Architectural Record, The Architect’s Newspaper, Cite; Domus; Domino; Dwell; GOOD; Icon, The Nation, New York magazine, Places Journal, Print and Slate. Lange is a Loeb Fellow, and her work has been recognized through a number of awards, including the 2019 Steven Heller Prize for Cultural Commentary.^[2][3]

Alexandra Lange
Alma mater	Yale University New York University Institute of Fine Arts
Occupation	Journalist
Website	https://www.alexandralange.net/

Lange’s architectural criticism has a focus on public projects.^[1] Her work includes reconceptualising the forms and formats of architectural and design writing and criticism to better engage with the complexities of architectural and design cultures, practices and production, and to write women back into the history of architecture and design.^{[4][5][6][7] [8]}

Education

Lange graduated with a BA in Architecture and Literature from Yale University in 1994. She gained her MA from the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, in 2001, and her PhD from the same institution in 2005 with the thesis “Tower Typewriter and Trademark: Architects, Designers and the Corporate Utopia, 1956–1964.” Lange was a Loeb Fellow at the Graduate School of Design, Harvard University, 2013–2014.^[9]

Awards and recognition

Lange’s work has been recognized through a number of awards and prizes. In 2020, she was the recipient of the Kliment Oculus Award, awarded to architectural journalists by the American Institute of Architects New York Chapter.^[10] (This award is named after Stephen A. Kliment—a former editor-in-chief of Architectural Record.)^[11] In 2019, Lange won the Steven Heller Prize for Cultural Commentary from the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA).^[12] In 2018, the New York Press Club presented her with an award for feature reporting for her Curbed/Vox Media article, “No Loitering, No Skateboarding, No Baggy Pants.”^[13][14]

Books

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Lange has published five books to date. The latest, Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall, was published by Bloomsbury Books in 2022.^[15] This works gives a history of development of the mall from its earliest beginnings just after World War II.

The Design of Childhood: How the Material World Shapes Independent Kids, was published by Bloomsbury Books in 2018 to critical acclaim.^{[16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23] [24][25]} The book charts the design of the toys, spaces and material culture that shape childhood, and the impact of these.^[26] One consequence of the approach has been to reveal the work and careers of many women not traditionally recognised within design and architectural history.^[8] The impact of the book has extended through essays published in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Curbed, The Atlantic and other publications.^{[27][28][29][26]}

Writing About Architecture: Mastering the Language of Buildings and Cities was published in 2012 by Chronicle Books.^{[30] [31] [32]}The Dot-Com City: Silicon Valley Urbanism, was published as en e-book by Strelka Institute in 2012.^[33]

Design Research: the store that brought modern living to American homes documents the history of Design Research, a store founded by Ben Thompson using the idea of the lifestyle store.^[34] Written with Jane Thompson, the book tells the story of Design Research through the voices of the people involved.^[35][36]

Lange has also published a range of chapters in books edited by others. These include:

• “Foreword” in Michelle Millar Fisher and Amber Winick, Designing Motherhood, MIT Press ( 2021).^[37]
• “Introduction” in Zach Mortice, Midwest Architecture Journeys, Belt Publishing (2019).^[38]
• “Introduction” in Identity: Chermayeff & Geismar & Haviv, Standards Manual (2018).^[39]
• “Toys as Furniture / Furniture as Toys,” Serious Play: Design in Midcentury America, New Haven: Yale University Press (2018).^[40]
• “Alexander Girard in Columbus,” Alexander Girard: A Designer’s Universe, Weil am Rhein: Vitra Design Museum, 2016.^{[41][42] [43]}
• “Stitching A House,” Listening: Bohlin Cywinski Jackson, Houses 2009 – 2015, New York: Rizzoli, 2015.^[44]
• “Preface,” Duke University: An Architectural Tour, New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2015.^[45]
• “2004 – 2008,” Thirty Years of Emerging Voices: Idea, Form, Resonance, New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2015.^[46]
• “The Glamour of Utility,” Formica Forever, New York: Metropolis Books, 2013.^[47]
• “’I Can’t Live in a Box’: Artists, activism and lower Manhattan in the 1960s,” in New York Cool: Paintings and Sculptures from the NYU Collection, ed. Pepe Karmel, New York: NYU, 2009.^[48]
• “Corporate Headquarters: Saarinen in Suburbia,” and with Sean Khorsandi, “Houses and Housing: At Home with Saarinen,” in Eero Saarinen: Shaping the Future, ed. Eeva-Liisa Pelkonen and Donald Albrecht, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.^[49]

Criticism and journalism

References

External links