1949-2021 After a long convalescence with a fatal ending due to coronavirus, on 27 February Richard Ingersoll passed away in Huebro, not far from Almería and the Mediterranean, which he loved so much. Ingersoll, historian, critic, and one of the most

Luis Fernández-Galiano   With the death of Richard Ingersoll this magazine dies a bit too. AV published his first article in 1987, and the last one appeared in the Arquitectura Viva issue right before this one. In between came over thirty years of admiration and friendship,

Cosentino   During the International Architecture Congress of June 2016 held in Pamplona, Rem Koolhaas and Richard Ingersoll talked about the political role of architecture. Richard Ingersoll: Delirious New York remains a masterpiece, a text that introduced to

Jacques Herzog For a young architect at the beginning of his career it is a challenging moment to see the widely admired work of established colleagues, often with a mixture of disdain and admiration. For my generation this moment was in the 1980s, a

Richard Ingersoll   In the past three decades, Luis Fernandez-Galiano, editor-in-chief of this magazine, has produced an exceptional treasure of texts on contemporary architecture. I know of no one in the field who is so thoroughly aware of facts and trends of the momen

Richard Ingersoll has passed away at 72. The American architect, historian, editor, and critic was a regular contributor to Arquitectura Viva. Born in San Francisco, Ingersoll graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, was a professor at

Richard Ingersoll   Most contemporary architects need to make a name for themselves before they can gain the sort of commissions that will demonstrate their ability. Fermín Vázquez from the outset was not very keen on spreading his name and instead chose a seemingly arb

Richard Ingersoll   I doubt there is anything else we can talk about since the inauspicious arrival of covid-19. The speed of contagion and the glut of fatalities, including large portions of doctors and nurses doing their jobs, have in less than a month forced at least

Richard Ingersoll   Among the illustrious victims of Covid-19 will be remembered one of Italy’s most influential architects, Vittorio Gregotti, who had been seriously ill for several months. His studio, Gregotti Associati, produced the largest output of any office in It

Richard Ingersoll   Although it is impossible to prove, it seems obvious that in the period since the end of World War ii more buildings have been produced than during all of the seven millennia of human construction activity that preceded it. This unprecedented buildin

Richard Ingersoll   When does news become history? Considering the current threat of climate change, I often wonder if a historical vision will survive the 21st century; but if it does, those concerned with what happened in architecture during the last decade of the 20t

Richard Ingersoll   The theme of the kaleidoscopic Biennale d’Arte of 2019, curated by Ralph Rugoff, was denouncement of the contemporary political situation.

Richard Ingersoll   Dignified restraint are the first words that pop into my mind when thinking of the architecture of David Chipperfield Architects, modified by the next adjective: ‘clever.’ If many of his works appear to be a return to the box, rather than thinking ou

Richard Ingersoll   As globalism proceeds to annihilate local identities, leaving behind cities that seem cut of the same cloth, a random resistance grows. Lefaivre’s book, while in no way espousing separatism or populist retrenchments, fulfills a certain revenge for th

Richard Ingersoll   Despite its undeniable quality, I doubt that the work of the Catalan architects Enric Batlle and Joan Roig will ever be recognized for its original style or for its technological innovations, but I am certain the office will be remembered for its uni

Richard Ingersoll   The optimistic view of ‘Freespace’, a concept promoted by Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara, better known as Grafton Architects and this year’s Biennale curators, is that architecture can be generous while serving utilitarian functions. Leon Battis

Richard Ingersoll   With the motto Viva Arte Viva, the Biennale has opted to present low-profile figures who uphold art as a creative endeavor, not as mere business. 

Richard Ingersoll   Although climate-change-denier recently assumed power in the USA, all knowledgeable sources agree that the planet has entered a new geological phase, defined by Paul Crutzen as the ‘Anthropocene.’ After two centuries of intense human-produced gases r

Richard Ingersoll   While his name in English evokes an air-conditioned villa (cool house), in Dutch it suggests one of the major anthropogenic causes of climate change: coal. This came to mind because twenty years ago, in the extremely climatized setting of Houston, Te

Richard Ingersoll   The ancient Greek myth of the lost continent of Atlantis, which allegedly sank into the depths of the Atlantic Ocean, giving it its name, has for two millennia offered an alternative narrative to Western civilization. Here an imaginary parallel cultu

Richard Ingersoll   It should come as no surprise that as the ‘crisis’ reveals itself to be less cyclical and rather endemic, the demand for architecture declines. Spain, one of the hardest hit since 2008, in particular because of the exponential growth of its construct

Richard Ingersoll   A vocation of service and a political slant have together set the tone of Alejandro Aravena’s Biennale, where hardly any stars have participated.

Richard Ingersoll   A pioneer in the fusion of architecture with parametrics and the first woman ever to win the Pritzker Prize on her own has passed away at the age of 65.

Arian Heidari Richard Ingersoll   A critique of graphic methods of urban analysis

Richard Ingersoll Spiro Kostof   A Cross-Cultural History