Untapped Journal

I knew it was inevitable, but it still surprised me when it happened: The McMansion is back as a cultural icon. This time it’s young people who see it as an ideal—a romantic one, even—of a now lost time in history. The fad, like most these days, both began and is largely relegated to short-form video content on platforms such as TikTok and Instagram.

When Susan Magsamen’s two-year-old granddaughter needs a nap, she brings her to a quiet room, pulls down the blackout curtains, and turns on a white-noise machine, creating the just-right setting to comfortably lull her to sleep. This type of ritual will sound familiar to caregivers of young children, but Magsamen wonders why, for the most part, we neglect how our environment makes us feel as we get older.

I’ve never had an “eye for design.” It wasn’t until my mid-twenties that I first truly noticed a piece of furniture: Walking into a friend’s apartment, I observed a skeleton of what might have been a love seat. There were no cushions; cross-hatched wood slats were laid bare, and the grain, illuminated by the sunlight, was dulled from use but still striking. It was not large, but simple, streamlined. I asked if it was meant to be a couch.

In Brooklyn winters, sunset can start as early as 4 p.m. The sky is gray, the windchill is biting, and the city is covered in a crusty film of salt. Even in this season of darkness (and in the now-tempting light of spring), dozens of neighbors have been gathering every Sunday afternoon in a local bar to plant the seeds for how they might build a forest garden in the Central Brooklyn neighborhood of Crown Heights.

Echo Park, Los Angeles, where the artist and designer Peter Shire was born, in 1947, is a quiet enclave which, around the time of his childhood, was colloquially known as “Red Hill” for its reputation as a haven for left-wingers.

For the tallest tower in Midtown Manhattan, One Vanderbilt, the firm Kohn Pedersen Fox clad the building in alternating panels of glass and aluminum, along with thousands of scalloped, champagne-colored terra-cotta spandrels to catch the light. Disney’s Hudson Square headquarters, by SOM, employs a matte emerald façade with double- and triple-columned terra-cotta pilasters, a conspicuous signal of corporate sophistication.

For the tallest tower in Midtown Manhattan, One Vanderbilt, the firm Kohn Pedersen Fox clad the building in alternating panels of glass and aluminum, along with thousands of scalloped, champagne-colored terra-cotta spandrels to catch the light. Disney’s Hudson Square headquarters, by SOM, employs a matte emerald façade with double- and triple-columned terra-cotta pilasters, a conspicuous signal of corporate sophistication.

Ludwig Wittgenstein took at least a year to design a pair of door handles for his sister’s house in Vienna. If it sounds a little strange for one of the 20th century’s great philosophers to have spent his time on a seemingly modest piece of bent-metal bars, we might also note that he spent just as long, if not longer, designing an L-shaped radiator, which folds into a corner. His handles consisted of a simple bar with a kink on one side.

If there is one thing that Los Angeles teaches you, it is to become highly sensitive to “vibe.” The notion of vibe supercharges this city—which is evidenced by its robust history of cults. Vibe is intangibility, ambiguity, and so is also a dark art. For those places or people or things able to possess it, or manufacture it, vibe is also power. Power and, we should say, a major economic driver. More and more, we seem to live in a vibe economy (and a vibe politics) = a very polite way of putting it.

If there is one thing that Los Angeles teaches you, it is to become highly sensitive to “vibe.” The notion of vibe supercharges this city—which is evidenced by its robust history of cults. Vibe is intangibility, ambiguity, and so is also a dark art. For those places or people or things able to possess it, or manufacture it, vibe is also power. Power and, we should say, a major economic driver. More and more, we seem to live in a vibe economy (and a vibe politics) = a very polite way of putting it.