Karrie Jacobs's guest appearances

Karrie Jacobs

Scratching the Surface

Events & Discussions

Ellen Lupton

James Goggin

Beatrice Galilee

Rick Poynor

Michael Kimmelman

Anab Jain

Andrew Blauvelt

Khoi Vinh

Manuel Lima

Paul Ford

Allison Arieff

Kate Wagner

Steven Heller

Paola Antonelli

Matthew Stuart

OwlTail

Karrie Jacobs writes about cities, buildings, and design. She's written for publications like Metropolis, Travel and Leisure,  The New York Times, ID, and Fortune. She was also the founding  editor-in-chief of Dwell and the founding executive editor of Colors. In this episode, Karrie and I talk about working at her college paper with Matt Groening and Lynda Barry, how she started writing about design, working at Dwell and Colors, and how design writing has changed over the course of her career. Links from this episode can be found at scratchingthesurface.fm.

Karrie Jacobs writes about cities, buildings, and design. She's written for publications like Metropolis, Travel and Leisure,  The New York Times, ID, and Fortune. She was also the founding  editor-in-chief of Dwell and the founding executive editor of Colors. In this episode, Karrie and I talk about working at her college paper with Matt Groening and Lynda Barry, how she started writing about design, working at Dwell and Colors, and how design writing has changed over the course of her career. Links from this episode can be found at <a href="http://scratchingthesurface.fm" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">scratchingthesurface.fm</a>.

47. Karrie Jacobs

The City Beautiful movement and disciples of the Ecole des Beaux Arts seeded our cities with examples of monumental splendor. Now, after a century-long hiatus, American cities are embracing beauty again though not through a monolithic, top-down strategy. Rather, cities are being made more beautiful incrementally, in exactly the unmethodical way that earlier generations would have decried as inharmonious. A language of urban beauty that is distinctively American has begun to emerge.Karrie Jacobs has written one-and-a-half books: The Perfect $100,000 House: A Trip Across America and Back in Pursuit of a Place to Call Home, published by Viking in 2006 and Angry Graphics, written with Steven Heller, published by Gibbs Smith in 1992. She’s a contributing editor at Metropolis magazine where she writes a monthly column, “America,” about how ideas and strategies in architecture and design play out on the landscape. She’s also a contributing editor at Travel + Leisure. She was the founding editor-in-chief of Dwell. Prior to launching Dwell in fall of 2000, she was the architecture critic of New York Magazine, and in the early 1990s, was the founding executive editor of Benetton’s Colors Magazine. She’s also a faculty member of the Design Criticism graduate program at the School of Visual Arts where she sends students out onto the streets of New York City so they can learn for themselves the differences between a good building and a bad building.

The City Beautiful movement and disciples of the Ecole des Beaux Arts seeded our cities with examples of monumental splendor. Now, after a century-long hiatus, American cities are embracing beauty again though not through a monolithic, top-down strategy. Rather, cities are being made more beautiful incrementally, in exactly the unmethodical way that earlier generations would have decried as inharmonious. A language of urban beauty that is distinctively American has begun to emerge.<br><br>Karrie Jacobs has written one-and-a-half books: The Perfect $100,000 House: A Trip Across America and Back in Pursuit of a Place to Call Home, published by Viking in 2006 and Angry Graphics, written with Steven Heller, published by Gibbs Smith in 1992. She’s a contributing editor at Metropolis magazine where she writes a monthly column, “America,” about how ideas and strategies in architecture and design play out on the landscape. She’s also a contributing editor at Travel + Leisure. She was the founding editor-in-chief of Dwell. Prior to launching Dwell in fall of 2000, she was the architecture critic of New York Magazine, and in the early 1990s, was the founding executive editor of Benetton’s Colors Magazine. She’s also a faculty member of the Design Criticism graduate program at the School of Visual Arts where she sends students out onto the streets of New York City so they can learn for themselves the differences between a good building and a bad building.

Karrie Jacobs, “The City Beautiful All Over Again”