Places Journal

Featured:

“Landscape as Resistance in the West Bank” by Hubert Murray: placesjournal.org/article/batt...

“A Militant Way of Living” by Ivonne Santoyo-Orozco: placesjournal.org/article/coop...

“Hippie Modernism” by Greg Castillo: placesjournal.org/article/hipp...

On Resistance: Recommendations from the Archive Three essays consider spatial tools with which to resist displacement, erasure, and hegemony.

“From the Archive” is a monthly dispatch of Places articles, recommended by the editors.

This month, we consider essays on resisting displacement, erasure, and hegemony, feat. a housing cooperative in Mexico City; environmentalists in the Palestinian village of Battir; and Bay Area design radicals.

Landscape as Resistance in the West Bank Under mounting political and ecological stress, environmentalists in the Palestinian village of Battir are working to protect a 4,000-year-old agricultural landscape.

fascinating piece in @placesjournal.bsky.social l placesjournal.org/article/batt...

Love this. Photo folks👇📸

In a Picture In these short, visually driven essays, authors consider a single image that depicts or suggests a strong sense of place.

Photographs are often seen as transparent stand-ins for whatever they depict. A new series in Places aims to draw attention to images + other 2-D representations as visual artifacts in and of themselves.

In short, visually driven essays, authors consider a single image with a strong sense of place.

"Although it can undoubtedly be considered a group portrait, there is no mention of the subjects in the original title. Only the place and time are registered. The darkening corners reveal the camera being pushed to its limit ... to achieve a closeness to the subjects and openness to the setting."

In a Picture: “Phoenix Park on a Sunday, Dublin” Evelyn Hofer’s portrait of Gaelic football players says as much about the setting as it does her subjects. Her camera captures an Ireland in transition.

Evelyn Hofer’s portrait of Gaelic football players says as much about the setting as it does her subjects. Her camera captures four athletes in jewel-toned jerseys and an Ireland in slow transition from colony to nation.

From Hugh Campbell, the latest in our new and ongoing series, “In a Picture”:

Architects in Wonderland Decades ago, James Marston Fitch argued that reuse of existing buildings should be prioritized over new construction. His thesis is more relevant than ever.

‘In architecture,’ Fitch wrote, ‘there are no spectators: there are only participants.’ @placesjournal.bsky.social #FutureArchive placesjournal.org/article/arch...

Architects in Wonderland Decades ago, James Marston Fitch argued that reuse of existing buildings should be prioritized over new construction. His thesis is more relevant than ever.

A New Dealer turned Columbia preservationist who helped save Grand Central, this piece traces how James Marston Fitch tied design to democracy and opposed suburban sprawl, urban renewal, and privatized luxury.

By Nancy Levinson in @placesjournal.bsky.social

September 2025 Newsletter: How do we organize power? Plus, more of the latest longform public scholarship from Places Journal. Sign up today. It's free!

Our Sept. newsletter: Boyce Upholt, on community energy hubs in New Orleans; Nancy Levinson, on the legacy of architect & preservationist James Marston Fitch; a new installment of “Bookshelf”; and a Reading List drawn from the Library we curated for the Venice Architecture Biennale.

Read & sign up!

Yes! It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)

Monumental Juxtapositions Since 2015, more than one hundred communities across the American South have removed, relocated, or modified Confederate monuments. In many cases, their symbolic — and material — imprints remain.

Since 2015, more than one hundred communities across the South have removed, relocated, or modified Confederate monuments.

"The weight of the objects was never solely symbolic," sociologist David Cunningham writes. "Their material imprints remain heavy, even when their places now appear as voids."

Monumental Juxtapositions Since 2015, more than one hundred communities across the American South have removed, relocated, or modified Confederate monuments. In many cases, their symbolic — and material — imprints remain.

Since 2015, more than 100 communities across the American South have removed, relocated or modified Confederate monuments. Some have been replaced, but in most cases, only scars mark the ground where a statue once stood. How are these symbolic and material imprints reshaping sites of public memory?

“Broken world thinking is not about anticipating, or learning from, failure. It is a habit of mind that thinks through the next states and effects of our systems as the very basis of design. In modernity, to break is to fail… Broken world thinking is optimistic about the inevitability of breakdown.”

All Is Lost: Notes on Broken World Design J.C. Chandor's elegiac film tells the story of one man’s struggle with nature. For designers, it's also a persuasive parable about our collective struggle with life at the end of modernity.

From the Archive:

A review essay on “All Is Lost,” a survival film starring the great Robert Redford lost at sea, in a solo struggle with nature.

“The film is a parable about our collective struggle with life at the end of modernity, as our fragile certainties are giving way and breaking down.”

All Is Lost: Notes on Broken World Design J.C. Chandor's elegiac film tells the story of one man’s struggle with nature. For designers, it's also a persuasive parable about our collective struggle with life at the end of modernity.

From the Archive:

A review essay on “All Is Lost,” a survival film starring the great Robert Redford lost at sea, in a solo struggle with nature.

“The film is a parable about our collective struggle with life at the end of modernity, as our fragile certainties are giving way and breaking down.”

Oh, wow! Thrilled by this, and a huge thanks to both @longreads.com, which has done so much to make the web a place for good writing, and @placesjournal.bsky.social, which is one of the preeminent venues for anything even remotely related to place, landscape, space, architecture, etc.

Architects in Wonderland Decades ago, James Marston Fitch argued that reuse of existing buildings should be prioritized over new construction. His thesis is more relevant than ever.

Left behind in the digital era is a rich store of essays on design that have limited cultural presence because they aren't online. In our ongoing series "Future Archive," we republish these texts, with new introductions.

Here's Nancy Levinson, on the simple yet radical ideas of James Marston Fitch:

“A Map of Radical Bewilderment” by @daeganmiller.bsky.social is featured this week on @longreads.com, in a Reading List on cartographic power and possibility.

A good reminder to return to Miller’s essay, which makes the argument that we can wander in a landscape without insisting it be profitable.

Architects in Wonderland Decades ago, James Marston Fitch argued that reuse of existing buildings should be prioritized over new construction. His thesis is more relevant than ever.

"To read James Marston Fitch's books today is to be impressed by their ambition, erudition, and not least, up-front democratic politics. What’s especially striking is the continuing insistence that buildings are not just artifacts to be designed, but environments to be inhabited and experienced."

"Fitch’s concern wasn't whether any one building might be efficient; he made a holistic argument about the comprehensive value of existing buildings. Because works of architecture demand enormous amounts of energy to build & maintain, they need not only be conserved but prioritized." —Nancy Levinson

Architects in Wonderland Decades ago, James Marston Fitch argued that reuse of existing buildings should be prioritized over new construction. His thesis is more relevant than ever.

James Marston Fitch argued that the reuse of existing buildings should be prioritized over construction of new ones. His simple yet radical thesis is more relevant than ever.

For our “Future Archive” series, Places Editor Nancy Levinson writes an introduction to a paper delivered by Fitch in 1978.

And here are the links to RSVP:

MIAMI: eventbrite.com/e/an-evening-with-sam-bloch-and-germane-barnes-tickets-1548336459029

AUSTIN: thethirdplace.is/event/sam-bloch-shade

If you're in the area, these promise to be very good conversations about a very important public resource!

A New Book on Shade by Sam Bloch This week marks the release of Shade: The Promise of a Forgotten Natural Resource, a new book by Sam Bloch that expands on an article published in Places in 2019.

@samkbloch.bsky.social has two events coming up, featuring his new book on shade!

SUN. 9/14: MIAMI, FL, in conversation w/ Germane Barnes

MON. 9/15: AUSTIN, TX, in conversation w/ Charles L. Davis II

Here’s more about the book, and how it emerged from an article Bloch wrote for Places in 2019:

The List

“Citizen” (Claudia Rankine)
“Between the World and Me” (Ta-Nehisi Coates)
“Shade” (Sam Bloch)
“Home Ground” (Lopez/Gwartney)
“How to Do Nothing” (Jenny Odell)
“The Sum of Us” (Heather McGhee)
“One Place After Another” (Miwon Kwon)
“House” (Tracy Kidder)
“Triumph of Injustice” (Saez/Zucman)

Reading List | Porch Thinking A public reading list on Places Journal by Editors.

There is a struggle today over the meaning of "the porch." For the U.S. Pavilion at the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale, Places curated a library of nearly 800 books on the topic. In the Reading List below, we’ve selected nine that are especially useful in defining what the porch means to us.

Happening this Sunday! For folks in the Miami area interested in the key role that shade plays in protecting human health, enhancing urban life, and protecting the planet — don’t miss this evening w/ @samkbloch.bsky.social and Germane Barnes. RSVP is free!

In MIAMI, FL, this SUN 9/14: Environmental journalist @samkbloch.bsky.social in conversation with architect/designer Germane Barnes @booksandbooks.bsky.social.

They’re talking Bloch’s new book, “Shade: The Promise of a Forgotten Natural Resource,” and the key role of shade in public space.

RSVP! ⬇️

Three Schools Join A Growing Places Partner Network This summer, we’re thrilled to welcome National University of Singapore, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and Iowa State University into the academic partner network.

We’re thrilled to welcome three members to our international network of academic partners: National University of Singapore, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign & Iowa State University.

These schools share Places' steadfast commitment to public scholarship on the built environment. Welcome all!

Three Schools Join A Growing Places Partner Network This summer, we’re thrilled to welcome National University of Singapore, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and Iowa State University into the academic partner network.

We’re thrilled to welcome three members to our international network of academic partners: National University of Singapore, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign & Iowa State University.

These schools share Places' steadfast commitment to public scholarship on the built environment. Welcome all!