Design for the Poor.

 

I write in Sunday’s Arts & Leisuresection about an ambitious and excellent design show devoted to what might seem like an unlikely topic: improving slum conditions in some of the poorest parts of the world.

The show was organized by Cynthia Smith, a curator at the Cooper-Hewitt Design Museum, which is closed for renovations for a couple of years. Hence, the exhibition is at the United Nations, where I also recall seeing a memorable display a few years ago of photographs by James Nachtwey, the great war photographer, who has borne witness for decades to just about every calamity in the world.
I mention it because I suspect that heading to the U.N. to wade through texts and videos about poverty and disease may sound like homework. But just as the eloquence and humanity of Mr. Nachtwey’s pictures made a visit to his exhibit so much more than educational, the inventiveness and scale of the projects in Ms. Smith’s show make the experience uplifting and even thrilling. It really is a thrill to discover that faced as we are with massive urban migration and rapidly expanding slums, there are big success stories that affirm the power of simple ideas.
Among the simplest is just plain listening to the clients, in this case the residents of these informal settlements, and including them as full-fledged partners in the process of design and urban renewal. Architects have spent too much time lately listening only to each other. “Basically architects have just been talking to architects,” is how Jeanne Gang, an architect and a freshly minted MacArthur Foundation fellow, put it to me the other morning.
But not all architects have been so self-absorbed, as this show points out. That’s what Ms. Smith has observed. I hope to see for myself soon some of the places she describes, especially in South America and Asia. Speaking of which, I’ve heard from some readers wondering whether and how much my new job as The Times’s architecture critic will take me away from New York — a good question.
Here’s how I look at it: New York is my hometown and the greatest subject, urbanistically, that I can imagine. It’s my pleasure, privilege and my job to cover it – all of it, not just the glamorous parts – with particular attention. But I expect to travel a lot, across the country and around the globe. After spending the last four years based in Berlin, and much of that time on airplanes crisscrossing Europe and the Middle East, I admit it’s been nice to spend my first few weeks settling back home, seeing the city where I was born and raised with (as close as I can come to) fresh eyes. There’s a lot to catch up with here. And to write about.