i had also seen a lot of promise in the last incarnation of "architecture" magazine.

nobody knows better than architects that the design of content communicates just as much as the content itself, and so it's legitimate to critique the design.

frankly, the design of this magazine seems like it is catering to the sub-starchitect high-end corporate architect with delusions of relevance. thus the ego-stroking personality-focused coverage perhaps.

i'll take architectural record's fawning coverage of the big names over that, thank you very much. because they have that big thick section at the back where you can take CEU courses, and those alone have been worth the price of the magazine (which is free for AIA members, but that's beside the point).

although it's just the first issue, with enough money they'll find their way.

Snarky comments? Man, I'm all over that --

this isnt a rebranded architecture magazin though.. Architect was a publication developed on its own, and then in the month before it wa to run its first issue, architecture shuttered its doors and sold its subscriptions base to hanley wood.

so. its not a new architecture, its a new magazine.

I'm still perplexed as to why we don't have an equal to DETAIL here in the US. A single issue of DETAIL has more design content than a year of Arch. Record or the new "architect" mag combined.
I love DETAIL but I hate that I cant buy it locally in Atlanta and issues are often lost in the mail en route from Germany.

yes, marlowe.
the us market is wide open for such a magazine.
someone start it please.

its not only Detail magazine that makes the US offerings seem miserably embarrassing -- so does A+U, Japan Architect, SPACE, Domus, Casabella, Architectural Review, Arch+, Archis, A&T and on and on...

Except that Archis doesnt exist anymore and is now Volume which is a Columbia Uniersity run magazine.. just published in NL.

I'm a little late to this thread, but an article just came out at Slate about this: The decline of architecture magazines. - By Witold Rybczynski

They seem to have a lot of similar thoughts as this thread...

architecture just ask me if I wanted to continue to receive their magazine for a professional discounted rate. Which did involve some laying out of cash, which I declined because I have always received it for free, which I really see as a professionally discounted rate. It must be the new owners.

I'm still annoyed with this magazine for all the previously discussed issues, including what I think are the disarming portraits of random people that they keep putting on the cover. However, I thought I would point out that the May issue has a nifty little feature called "The Meta Rankings" which has lots of graphics and charts and stuff, for those of you who are inclined to compare architecture firms like baseball teams.

One graphic entitled "Best US Firms to Work For, 2006" has ranked two firms that I work with on a regular basis very highly, and I will say that while they may be good to work *for*, working *with* them is not a walk in the park.

The smug architect pictures need to go. Yes, architecture sucks, but some of us still smile!
j

Thanks for reviving this DubK! I was planning to to make one specific comment:

As I posted on the Volume thread, most magazines in my house live in the bathroom. That pic on the cover is somewhat uncomfortable to see when I get out of the shower.

That said, a few issues in I'm really enjoying reading Architect. I like the city profiles, I like the discussion of the profession. I think it's finding a decent niche.

Having paged through a few issues of Architect, I feel like it both looks and reads like an insurance industry screed circa 1977. Its focus seems to be more on architect's fashion choices and the manufacture of artificial celebrity than on buildings or critical debate. Its photographs are dark and gloomy, its font and graphic choices are weird, dated and corporate.

Why do we need a lifesized portrait of an architect on every cover? Is architecture all of a sudden more about skincare and eyewear than buildings or concepts?

But my biggest criticism is that it reinforces the lack of critical debate in major American architecture publications (there are a few small ones that I appreciate: Praxis, and the Harvard Design Magazine, among others.) Its articles are all about the status quo.

My god, the current issue is called "Profiles in Power," with pictures of a bunch of functionaries looking as deadly serious as prison guards. Good to know about, but I'd also like a little inspiration.

Oh, and the "Meta" rankings in the latest issue really annoyed me. This is the level of critical discussion in American architecture mags: my firm is better than your firm. It gives the impression that all American architects care about is billable hours.

I just ordered DETAIL for my students to read in my college library. I think they also have Architectural Record at the library and I recommended they cancel it because it is like a newspaper to be thrown away in an hour after you're done reading it whereas DETAIL is a resource that you can come back to in a month or 10 years. Architect is ? I am not sure but...

Architect is Ned Cramer's baby. Ned Cramer is the guy who was in charge of the Chicago Architecture Foundation. He gave an interview about high-rise buildings in Chicago that I thought was the height of pretentiousness and ignorance. He was commenting on the different designs for Pritzker's Office tower on Wacker Drive. Norman Foster designed a tower that paid homage in its typology to the Inland Steel Building and in its structure to Buckminster Fuller. It had large clearspan floor spaces supported by an exterior steel diamond patterened frame that was the most structural support for the smallest amount of material. The Pritzkers cancelled it in favor of a corporate design that is two intersecting curves in plan. It makes for some very odd floorplates. Cramer commented that losing the Foster building was ok because (and I am paraphrasing here) not every tower in Chicago needs to be a signature building. What should it be? CRAP? ;-)

And that's my comment about the magazine.

Actually, Architectural Record isn't a bad magazine. Recently, they've started to look at international work, new materials, and detailing more, which is positive (as well as the continuing education stuff.)

But I always wish these magazines would concentrate on the process of making buildings a little more thoroughly, rather than glossy pictures....

Hey! I actually know the architect on the cover of the August 07 issue. Bought time the did someone interesting.



**Apologies if YOU were one of the previous cover shots.