Fred A. Bernstein

Fred Bernstein has degrees in architecture (from Princeton University) and law (from NYU) and writes about both subjects. He lives in New York City and has two sons.

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Arata Isozaki (1931-2022)

A tribute to the great Japanese architect

Published in Architectural Record
December 30, 2022
What Price Honor?

A temple to honor at the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs damages perhaps the greatest modernist campus in the world. And it's by the campus's original architect, SOM

Published in Architectural Record
January 8, 2016
Sweet Sixteen Acres

My assessment of Ground Zero, in 2018

Published in Log
October 1, 2018
A Park Grows in Moscow

Diller Scofidio + Renfro leads an international team of designers, working in the shadow of the Kremlin

Published in Blueprint
October 13, 2017
American Architecture 1945-1970: From Post-War to Post-Modern

(all that in 2,500 words)

Published in A+U (Japan)
November 6, 2017
Architects Remember the 1964-65 World's Fair

One after another, architects who grew up in New York in the sixties recall how the fair inspired them

Published in Architectural Record
May 30, 2014
The Punctured Sky: New York's Architectural Heritage

A history of New York City architecture: the last 150 years in 4,500 words

Published in Books
April 16, 2008
The Many Dimensions of Roberto Burle Marx

Should the great landscape architect be recognized for more than his astounding parks and gardens?

Published Architect
April 10, 2016
Glazing Over Manhattan

Too many glass buildings, and the city becomes just another shiny office park

Published in Architectural Record
May 9, 2013
Eero Saarinen's Better Half?

A new book gives Mrs. Saarinen too much credit, and its author, Eva Hagberg, too much space

Published in The Architect's Newspaper
September 12, 2022
Grace Farms, by SANAA

A Gossamer Serpent in New Canaan

Published in Blueprint
June 20, 2018
Santiago Calatrava's Four Billion Dollar Mall

A review of the World Trade Center "Transit Hub"

Published in Blueprint
July 17, 2016
Starchitects on the Buildings That Influenced Them Most

Ando, Meier, Scott Brown, Decq, and others talk about their inspirations

Published in Architectural Record
April 13, 2016
Diller Scofidio + Renfro's Amazing Continuous Surface Building

Their new Columbia Medical School study center caps decades of experimentation

Published in Blueprint
November 9, 2016
The Ethereal Architecture of Sou Fujimoto

Perhaps Japan's most innovative architect, Fujimoto makes buildings that resemble clouds and forests.

Published in The Wall Street Journal
October 18, 2014
Being Frank Gehry

With the triumphs have come many disappointments

Published at fredbernstein.com
September 2, 2015
It's the Architecture, Not The Architect, I'm Rooting For

Give Calatrava a chance!

Published in Architectural Record
December 10, 2013
Panama Highway, A Noose Around Casco Viejo's Neck?

An old city gets an unwelcome new neighbor

Published in Architectural Record
October 26, 2012
U.S. Flops at Shanghai Expo

Another embarrassing U.S. pavilion, courtesy of a shortsighted Congress

Published in Los Angeles Times
August 5, 2010
Rediscovering a Heroine of Chicago Architecture

Many of Frank Lloyd Wright's most evocative drawings were by Marion Mahony Griffin

Published in The New York Times
January 20, 2008
Glass House, Great Performance

Merce Cunningham animates Philip Johnson's estate

Published in Interior Design
August 25, 2007
Remembering the Royalton

Mourning Phiippe Starck's Miracle on 44th Street

Published in Interior Design
September 21, 2007
Post-Renovation Depression

The contractors are gone. So why do I feel blue?

Published in The New York Times
February 22, 2007
A Makeover Too Far

The conspicuous consumption of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition

Published in Dwell
October 29, 2006
Peter Eisenman in Verona

A review of the architect's 2004 Castelvecchio installation

Published in Architectural Record
December 6, 2004
Where Are All the 60's Buildings Going?

Baby boomers lead the charge to tear down 60's architecture

Published in The New York Times
October 31, 2004
A Neglected Modernist Masterpiece

Pier Luigi Nervi's bus station at the George Washington Bridge deserves respect

Published in Oculus (Journal of the New York chapter of the American Institute of Architects)
November 2, 2003
Pierwise, One Person's Wreck Is Another's Art

Saving two rusting piers in the Hudson River

Published in The New York Times
September 4, 2003
One campus, two faces

Princeton goes Gehry -- and Gothic -- at the same time

Published in The Princeton Alumni Weekly
January 21, 2003
Memorials fit for a city

Architects get busy after 9/11

Published in Blueprint
February 22, 2002
City Folk

A review of the new American Folk Art Museum, designed by Tod Williams and Billie Tsien.

Published in World Architecture
February 22, 2002
When Modern Married Money

Blue blood meets white architecture in New England.

Published in The New York Times
February 3, 2002
Drawing Closer to an Old Friend

Thoughts on the importance of the Empire State Building after September 11

Published in The New York Times
October 11, 2001
Islamic Cultural Center of New York: 14-Year WatchPublished in Oculus (Journal of the New York chapter of the American Institute of Architects)
December 2004
AXA Equitable Tower: 21-Year WatchPublished in Oculus (Journal of the New York chapter of the American Institute of Architects)
October 2007
Liberty Bell Pavilion: 30-Year WatchPublished in Oculus (Journal of the New York chapter of the American Institute of Architects)
April 2006
Ford Foundation HQ: 40-Year WatchPublished in Oculus (Journal of the New York chapter of the American Institute of Architects)
December 2007
New York Hall of Science: 40-Year WatchPublished in Oculus (Journal of the New York chapter of the American Institute of Architects)
September 2004
George Washington Bridge Bus Station: 40-Year WatchPublished in Oculus (Journal of the New York chapter of the American Institute of Architects)
March 2003
Bridge Apartments: 40-Year WatchPublished in Oculus (Journal of the New York chapter of the American Institute of Architects)
December 2003
Chatham Towers: 40-Year WatchPublished in Oculus (Journal of the New York chapter of the American Institute of Architects)
July 2004
United Nations Headquarters: 50-Year WatchPublished in Oculus (Journal of the New York chapter of the American Institute of Architects)
September 2003
Con Ed Waterside Generating Plant: 105-Year WatchPublished in Oculus (Journal of the New York chapter of the American Institute of Architects)
July 2006
Serious Architecture in Fire Island Pines

Work by Horace Gifford and HWKN

Published in Architectural Record
June 2013
Critic Takes New Catholic Architecture to TaskPublished in The New York Times
January 1, 2000
Calatrava's New Saint Nicholas Church Opens at Ground Zero

A "national shrine" now hovers over the World Trade Center site

Published in Architectural Record
December 10, 2022
We Have a Family Welder

Arthur Cotton Moore designs a curvy metal house to test his theories

Published in The New York Times
September 24, 2000
A Carbon Fiber House by Ali TayarPublished in The Architect's Newspaper
May 2, 2015
A School by Edward Durell Stone

While fighting over his Columbus Circle building, preservationists overlooked another Stone structure just a few blocks away

Published in Oculus (Journal of the New York chapter of the American Institute of Architects)
December 26, 2006
Seaside at 25: Paradise, With Problems

The walkable community now has valet parking, and other concessions to the real world

Published in The New York Times
December 9, 2005
A Cathedral to Science in QueensPublished in Oculus (Journal of the New York chapter of the American Institute of Architects)
October 24, 2004
Letting Kahn Be Kahn

Restoring the Yale University Art Gallery

Published in The New York Times
December 10, 2006
Sky-High Style

Master Architect Hugh Newell Jacobsen used his signature vocabulary to create a unique rocky mountain retreat.

Published in Metropolitan Home
December 4, 2006
The Wright Stuff, in the Japanese Heartland

Visiting the Meiji Mura Museum

Published in The New York Times
April 2, 2006
Where New and Old Collide

Steven Holl's building for Pratt Institute in Brooklyn

Published in Metropolis
January 17, 2006
Outside The Box

Boston-based architect Adolfo Perez turned a mid-century starter house into a home of substance for design-wise clients.

Published in Metropolitan Home
December 4, 2005
Second Nature

Contemplative architect George Suyama built a house for himself and his wife that is as hospitable to the landscape as it is to the couple's guests.

Published in Metropolitan Home
December 4, 2005
Mies in NewarkPublished in Oculus (Journal of the New York chapter of the American Institute of Architects)
November 14, 2005
Paul Rudolph's Tracey Towers

The fate of Rudolph's apartment buildings in the Bronx

Published in Oculus (Journal of the New York chapter of the American Institute of Architects)
October 13, 2005
A Long Time for a Little Grandeur

An addition to the Tilles Center soars

Published in The New York Times
January 5, 2005
America Joins Architecture's Rem-formationPublished in Icon
October 20, 2004
Bridge ApartmentsPublished in Oculus (Journal of the New York chapter of the American Institute of Architects)
September 29, 2004
A Monument to Arriving in the Middle of Nowhere

A review of the Secaucus Transfer

Published in The New York Times
July 11, 2004
How much design do public spaces need?Published in Architectural Record
August 14, 2003
Dust-Up In the Desert

Trouble at the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture

Published in The New York Times
January 31, 2002
Franoise Bollack at the CenterPublished in Genre
January 17, 2002
Seaside on Celluloid

The Florida town so perfect, moviegoers think it's fake

Published in Blueprint
January 1, 2000
Rem Koolhaas takes a look at the "junk space" of American mallsPublished in The New York Times
February 28, 2002
The New School's Stairmaster

SOM's student-centered building on Fifth Avenue

Published in Architectural Record
March 2019
The Mouse That Roared

A look back at Michael Graves's career

Published in Architectural Record
November 14, 2014
UnSangDong Architects

A Korean firm is part of Record's Design Vanguard

Published in Architectural Record
December 16, 2006
SOAPBOX: Masking a Terminal's Triumph

A 35-foot-high billboard on the facade of the Port Authority Bus Terminal will obscure the strengths of the building's 1980's renovation

Published in The New York Times
December 20, 1998
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