Christopher Hawthorne

"The Islamists oppose women getting an education," I mutter, as I aim my missile at the girls school

Review: Reinier de Graaf’s radical chic Or, How to have your taart and eat it too. Plus: Rem weighs in by email on de Graaf’s call for a mandatory retirement age in architecture

“Often, and this of course is odd for a manifesto, he writes the way Gensler makes architecture, or maybe the way Oprah might gush abt, say, the good works of Meghan + Harry while all three sit beneath the bougainvillea on a Montecito terrace… The role in this enterprise of Verso… remains puzzling.”

Review: Reinier de Graaf’s radical chic Or, How to have your taart and eat it too. Plus: Rem weighs in by email on de Graaf’s call for a mandatory retirement age in architecture

Reinier de Graaf’s radical chic:

www.punchlistmag.com/p/review-rei...

“I believe there is a place for the fellow who yells fire and indicates where some of the smoke is coming from without actually dragging the hose to the spot.”—Nathanael West

After a disastrous run two years, Will Lewis is OUT as CEO and publisher of The Washington Post. Jeff D'Onofrio steps in as interim boss.

“The problem is bigger than BIG”: Architecture and labor rights clash in London A Punch List correspondent reports from the scene. Plus: the architects in the Epstein files, and the Independence Arch goes XXL

Definitely interesting.

"“The problem is bigger than BIG”: Architecture and labor rights clash in London", by @hawthorne.bsky.social and Lev Bratishenko.

www.punchlistmag.com/p/the-proble...

The more I read about Gaudi’s life, the more convinced I become that he’d be the ideal subject for a Paul Scrader biopic

This is the U Penn donor who helped push the President out, pushed to eliminate arts & science offerings, and drafted Trumps "compact" with universities.
People like Rowan repeatedly claimed the moral high ground to impose their agenda on students and faculty.

A soundtrack with (virtually) no narration: L.A. gathers to remember Frank Gehry Warning: This one’s a bit more gossipy than usual. Plus: The White House ballroom gets a sham hearing; the hero of "Free Solo" goes architectural; and California Forever is back!

Fittingly enough, this Frank Gehry memorial had no speeches:

www.punchlistmag.com/p/a-soundtra...

Kicking the tires on car-free living in Arizona Culdesac Tempe, held up as a model, is closer to a cautionary tale. Plus: a bumper crop of design exhibitions to open the year

“Looking to private developers to undo nearly a century of car-centric urban planning in American cities, one small development at a time, is by definition a Sisyphean task. This is a job instead for broad-based public policy to take on.”

@hawthorne.bsky.social on Culdesac

Kicking the tires on car-free living in Arizona Culdesac Tempe, held up as a model, is closer to a cautionary tale. Plus: a bumper crop of design exhibitions to open the year

@hawthorne.bsky.social on the peril and promise of Culdesac: "A cautionary tale about the limits of the sort of urban change that’s driven not by community consensus or enlightened policymaking but by private developers selling a particular lifestyle."

www.punchlistmag.com/p/kicking-th...

Mamdani Called Trump to Criticize Venezuela Strikes

NYT gonna NYT: "Both Mr. Mamdani and Mr. Maduro identify as socialists, though they have no relationship.” — would be funny if they did this every time you write about two capitalists.

www.nytimes.com/2026/01/03/w...

Thanks Susan!

Books on this list by @paulgoldberger.bsky.social @mlamster.bsky.social @langealexandra.bsky.social & many more

Year in review, part two: Los Angeles the bellwether As we near the first anniversary of the deadly Eaton and Palisades fires, it’s become clear that L.A.’s future is your future too; “any place can burn down”

I wrote about the LA fires as their first anniversary approaches:

www.punchlistmag.com/p/year-in-re...

also tania maria better get an oscar nomination for supporting actress

there is a little visual joke in one of the very last scenes of The Secret Agent, a riff on the movie’s minor obsession with Jaws, that pleased me no end, and that I’ve yet to see any critics make mention of

shoutout mr bye

The one rule my high school creative writing teacher (who was fresh from a Stegner at Stanford) set for our short stories was “No crying, no dying.” We ended up using that as the title for the class anthology

I’m at the combination Pizza Hut and Kennedy Center.

The 10 Best Book Reviews of 2025 While researching the Little Review archives for my book, A Danger to the Minds of Young Girls, I stumbled across an all-time banger of an opening line in Jane Heap’s review of Sherwood Anderson’s …

For Lit Hub, I rounded up the best book *reviews* of the year. This time, I focused on great openers.

Criticism is literature! lithub.com/the-10-best-...

this is not behavior becoming of a FIFA Peace Prize recipient.

A stronghold of incisive writing and civic values A message from Timothy Schuler, Places reader, contributing writer, and monthly donor.

A message from Places reader, contributing writer + donor Timothy Schuler:

“Please join me in supporting this life-sustaining journal. As a monthly donor myself, I’ve found that giving to Places each month feels like casting a vote — again and again — for the kind of public culture we need.”

What the Stahl House says about L.A. For a cool $25m, the most famous of the Case Study designs can be yours

www.punchlistmag.com/p/what-the-s...

there is a certain condescension in the idea that “racism should be publicly unacceptable and come with consequences” is an attack on the “working class.”

ah, the old “worker solidarity trumps all (even blatant racism)” trope—very familiar to me as a native of berkeley, and just as naive and shortsighted as ever

Miami will have its first Democratic mayor in 30 years

came here to say this

Trump’s new ballroom architect, Shalom Baranes, is a self-described “refugee” who publicly challenged the president on immigration “My work would be impossible without my fellow immigrants,” he wrote in 2017

www.punchlistmag.com/p/trump-s-ne...

i’m generally sympathetic to your argument! but there’s no 5 over 1 that’s going to age like the eastern columbia bldg