This column is part of a series for the Design special report of The New York Times. Readers are invited to send questions to designadvice@nytimes.com. I would like to install central air-conditioning in my prewar apartment, but I want something minimally invasive. What are my options, and how do I get started? First, ask your…
Will Miller remembers skateboarding along the perimeter of his family’s home, a marble-trimmed glass box in Columbus, Ind., designed in the 1950s by Eero Saarinen. His record time for circumnavigating the 6,800 square-foot building was about two minutes: “I was really booking,” he said recently. Mr. Miller, now 63 and a foundation president in New…
By now, we all know that millennials are less inclined than previous generations to buy a house or car or stick with a single employer. Apparently they have commitment issues when it comes to home furnishings, too. At least that’s the thinking behind several web start-ups seeking to lease them everything from sofas to throw…
Image The Italian designers Cesare Leonardi and Franca Stagi, who partnered in a Modena practice from the 1960s until the ‘80s, spent their spare time obsessively sketching trees in all seasons for editions of “The Architecture of Trees” (Princeton Architectural Press, $125, 424 pp.). The book is newly available in English, and expanded into a…
Choosing a new armchair isn’t just about finding a place to sit — it can also change the entire aesthetic of a room. “It offers the opportunity to not only serve a function, but also convey personality,” said Will Meyer, a founding partner of the New York-based interior design firm Meyer Davis. “That’s where the…
Despite a long history of segregation and racism, America’s top pageants have broken racial barriers in recent decades. Vanessa Williams became the first black woman to win the Miss America title in 1984. Carole Gist won Miss USA in 1990. Janel Bishop won Miss Teen USA in 1991. Each competition has had multiple black winners…
Explainers This year’s Met Gala theme has us wondering about things we treasure. May 4, 2019 In 1964, Susan Sontag defined camp as an aesthetic “sensibility” that is plain to see but hard for most of us to explain: an intentional over-the-top-ness, a slightly (or extremely) “off” quality, bad taste as a vehicle for good…
Officially, it’s the Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute benefit, a black-tie extravaganza held the first Monday in May to raise money for the Costume Institute (a.k.a., the fashion department). Unofficially, the night’s festivities have been called many things, including “the party of the year,” “the Oscars of the East Coast” (mostly because of the…
Before their presidential aspirations became national news, six of the 23 declared candidates in the 2020 election were part of a different type of announcement published in The New York Times: their wedding announcement. Two of Donald J. Trump’s weddings were reported in The Times. Pete Buttigieg, Eric Swalwell, Tulsi Gabbard, Michael Bennet and Bill…
Overture Looking back on his life and career in “The Glass of Fashion” in 1954, Cecil Beaton, the society photographer and social fixture, reported a curious incident sometime in the 1930s. “Hearty naval commanders or jolly colonels,” he wrote, “acquired the ‘camp’ manners of calling everything from Joan of Arc to Merlin ‘lots of fun,’…