Issue 14
ISSUE
STORY TYPE
AUTHOR
13
BOOK REVIEW
November 25, 2024
A Mind-Body Experience of Architecture, Delivered in a Photo
by Marianela D’Aprile
13
PERSPECTIVE
November 18, 2024
Seeing Chinatown as a Readymade
by Philip Poon
13
PEOPLE
November 11, 2024
The Place of the Handmade Artifact in a Tech-Obsessed Era
by Anne Quito
13
THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT
November 4, 2024
How a Storied Printmaker Advances the Practice of Architecture
by Diana Budds
12
PEOPLE
October 21, 2024
Sounding Out a Better Way to Build
by Jesse Dorris
12
THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT
October 7, 2024
What It Means—and What It’s Worth—to Be “Light”
by Julie Lasky
12
PERSPECTIVE
September 23, 2024
Redefining “Iconic” Architecture and Ideals
by Sophie Lovell
12
PERSPECTIVE
September 9, 2024
Surrendering to What Is
by Marianne Krogh
11
THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT
August 26, 2024
Sometimes, Democratic Design Doesn’t “Look” Like Anything
by Zach Mortice
11
THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT
August 19, 2024
What Does Your Home Say About You?
by Shane Reiner-Roth
11
BOOK REVIEW
August 12, 2024
Is Building Better Cities a Dream Within Reach?
by Michael Webb
11
PEOPLE
August 5, 2024
The Value of Unbuilt Buildings
by George Kafka
11
THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT
July 29, 2024
Future-Proofing a Home Where Water Is a Focus and a Thread
by Alexandra Lange
11
BOOK REVIEW
July 22, 2024
Modernist Town, U.S.A.
by Ian Volner
11
PEOPLE
July 15, 2024
Buildings That Grow from a Place
by Anthony Paletta
10
URBANISM
June 24, 2024
What We Lose When a Historic Building Is Demolished
by Owen Hatherley
10
PERSPECTIVE
June 17, 2024
We Need More Than Fewer, Better Things
by Deb Chachra
10
THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT
June 3, 2024
An Ode to Garages
by Charlie Weak
10
PERSPECTIVE
May 28, 2024
In Search of Domestic Kintsugi
by Edwin Heathcote
10
THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT
May 13, 2024
The Perils of the Landscapes We Make
by Karrie Jacobs
10
PERSPECTIVE
May 6, 2024
Using Simple Tools as a Radical Act of Independence
by Jarrett Fuller
9
PERSPECTIVE
April 29, 2024
Why Can’t I Just Go Home?
by Eva Hagberg
9
PEOPLE
April 22, 2024
Why Did Our Homes Stop Evolving?
by George Kafka
9
ROUNDTABLE
April 8, 2024
Spaces Where the Body Is a Vital Force
by Tiffany Jow
9
BOOK REVIEW
April 1, 2024
Tracing the Agency of Women as Users and Experts of Architecture
by Mimi Zeiger
9
PERSPECTIVE
March 25, 2024
Are You Sitting in a Non-Place?
by Mzwakhe Ndlovu
9
ROUNDTABLE
March 11, 2024
At Home, Connecting in Place
by Marianela D’Aprile
9
PEOPLE
March 4, 2024
VALIE EXPORT’s Tactical Urbanism
by Alissa Walker
8
PERSPECTIVE
February 26, 2024
What the “Whole Earth Catalog” Taught Me About Building Utopias
by Anjulie Rao
8
THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT
February 19, 2024
How a Run-Down District in London Became a Model for Neighborhood Revitalization
by Ellen Peirson
8
THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT
February 12, 2024
In Brooklyn, Housing That Defies the Status Quo
by Gideon Fink Shapiro
8
PERSPECTIVE
February 5, 2024
That “Net-Zero” Home Is Probably Living a Lie
by Fred A. Bernstein
8
PERSPECTIVE
January 22, 2024
The Virtue of Corporate Architecture Firms
by Kate Wagner
8
PERSPECTIVE
January 16, 2024
How Infrastructure Shapes Us
by Deb Chachra
8
THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT
January 8, 2024
The Defiance of Desire Lines
by Jim Stephenson
7
PEOPLE
December 18, 2023
This House Is Related to You and to Your Nonhuman Relatives
by Sebastián López Cardozo
7
THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT
December 11, 2023
What’s the Point of the Plus Pool?
by Ian Volner
7
BOOK REVIEW
December 4, 2023
The Extraordinary Link Between Aerobics and Architecture
by Jarrett Fuller
7
THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT
November 27, 2023
Architecture That Promotes Healing and Fortifies Us for Action
by Kathryn O’Rourke
7
PEOPLE
November 6, 2023
How to Design for Experience
by Diana Budds
7
PEOPLE
October 30, 2023
The Meaty Objects at Marta
by Jonathan Griffin
6
OBJECTS
October 23, 2023
How Oliver Grabes Led Braun Back to Its Roots
by Marianela D’Aprile
6
URBANISM
October 16, 2023
Can Adaptive Reuse Fuel Equitable Revitalization?
by Clayton Page Aldern
6
PERSPECTIVE
October 9, 2023
What’s the Point of a Tiny Home?
by Mimi Zeiger
6
OBJECTS
October 2, 2023
A Book Where Torn-Paper Blobs Convey Big Ideas
by Julie Lasky
6
THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT
September 24, 2023
The Architecture of Doing Nothing
by Edwin Heathcote
6
BOOK REVIEW
September 18, 2023
What the “Liebes Look” Says About Dorothy Liebes
by Debika Ray
6
PEOPLE
September 11, 2023
Roy McMakin’s Overpowering Simplicity
by Eva Hagberg
6
OBJECTS
September 5, 2023
Minimalism’s Specific Objecthood, Interpreted by Designers of Today
by Glenn Adamson
5
ROUNDTABLE
August 28, 2023
How Joan Jonas and Eiko Otake Navigate Transition
by Siobhan Burke
5
OBJECTS
August 21, 2023
The Future-Proofing Work of Design-Brand Archivists
by Adrian Madlener
5
URBANISM
August 14, 2023
Can a Church Solve Canada’s Housing Crisis?
by Alex Bozikovic
5
PEOPLE
August 7, 2023
In Search of Healing, Helen Cammock Confronts the Past
by Jesse Dorris
5
URBANISM
July 31, 2023
What Dead Malls, Office Parks, and Big-Box Stores Can Do for Housing
by Ian Volner
5
PERSPECTIVE
July 24, 2023
A Righteous Way to Solve “Wicked” Problems
by Susan Yelavich
5
OBJECTS
July 17, 2023
Making a Mess, with a Higher Purpose
by Andrew Russeth
5
ROUNDTABLE
July 10, 2023
How to Emerge from a Starchitect’s Shadow
by Cynthia Rosenfeld
4
PEOPLE
June 26, 2023
There Is No One-Size-Fits-All in Architecture
by Marianela D’Aprile
4
PEOPLE
June 19, 2023
How Time Shapes Amin Taha’s Unconventionally Handsome Buildings
by George Kafka
4
PEOPLE
June 12, 2023
Seeing and Being Seen in JEB’s Radical Archive of Lesbian Photography
by Svetlana Kitto
4
PERSPECTIVE
June 5, 2023
In Built Environments, Planting Where It Matters Most
by Karrie Jacobs
3
PERSPECTIVE
May 30, 2023
On the Home Front, a Latine Aesthetic’s Ordinary Exuberance
by Anjulie Rao
3
PERSPECTIVE
May 21, 2023
For a Selfie (and Enlightenment), Make a Pilgrimage to Bridge No. 3
by Alexandra Lange
3
THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT
May 8, 2023
The Building Materials of the Future Might Be Growing in Your Backyard
by Marianna Janowicz
3
BOOK REVIEW
May 1, 2023
Moving Beyond the “Fetishisation of the Forest”
by Edwin Heathcote
2
ROUNDTABLE
April 24, 2023
Is Craft Still Synonymous with the Hand?
by Tiffany Jow
2
PEOPLE
April 17, 2023
A Historian Debunks Myths About Lacemaking, On LaceTok and IRL
by Julie Lasky
2
THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT
April 10, 2023
How AI Helps Architects Design, and Refine, Their Buildings
by Ian Volner
2
PEOPLE
April 3, 2023
Merging Computer and Loom, a Septuagenarian Artist Weaves Her View of the World
by Francesca Perry
1
THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT
March 27, 2023
Words That Impede Architecture, According to Reinier de Graaf
by Osman Can Yerebakan
1
PEOPLE
March 20, 2023
Painting With Plaster, Monica Curiel Finds a Release
by Andrew Russeth
1
PERSPECTIVE
March 13, 2023
Rules and Roles in Life, Love, and Architecture
by Eva Hagberg
1
Roundtable
March 6, 2023
A Design Movement That Pushes Beyond Architecture’s Limitations
by Tiffany Jow
0
THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT
February 7, 2023
To Improve the Future of Public Housing, This Architecture Firm Looks to the Past
by Ian Volner
0
OBJECTS
February 7, 2023
The Radical Potential of “Prime Objects”
by Glenn Adamson
0
PEOPLE
February 20, 2023
Xiyadie’s Queer Cosmos
by Xin Wang
0
PEOPLE
February 13, 2023
How Michael J. Love’s Subversive Tap Dancing Steps Forward
by Jesse Dorris
0
SHOW AND TELL
February 7, 2023
Finding Healing and Transformation Through Good Black Art
by Folasade Ologundudu
0
BOOK REVIEW
February 13, 2023
How Stephen Burks “Future-Proofs” Craft
by Francesca Perry
0
ROUNDTABLE
February 27, 2023
Making Use of End Users’ Indispensable Wisdom
by Tiffany Jow
0
PEOPLE
February 7, 2023
The New Lessons Architect Steven Harris Learns from Driving Old Porsches
by Jonathan Schultz
0
PERSPECTIVE
February 7, 2023
The Day Architecture Stopped
by Kate Wagner
0
OBJECTS
February 7, 2023
The Overlooked Potential of Everyday Objects
by Adrian Madlener
0
ROUNDTABLE
February 7, 2023
A Conversation About Generalists, Velocity, and the Source of Innovation
by Tiffany Jow
0
OBJECTS
February 7, 2023
Using a Fungi-Infused Paste, Blast Studio Turns Trash Into Treasure
by Natalia Rachlin
Untapped is published by the design company Henrybuilt.
PERSPECTIVE
11.18.2024
Seeing Chinatown as a Readymade

How considering buildings in the Manhattan neighborhood this way can help us confront issues of race, class, and space.

Street view of the Greek restaurant Kiki’s in New York’s Chinatown, in 2017, with Chinese characters on its awning
The Greek restaurant Kiki’s in New York’s Chinatown, in 2017. (Photo: Philp Poon)


One of the most important moments in art history occurred in 1917, when Marcel Duchamp submitted “Fountain,” a urinal he bought and signed under the pseudonym R. Mutt, to a New York exhibition. “Fountain” was one of Duchamp’s readymades: found, often mundane, mass-produced objects he designated as art. Many consider this moment the birth of conceptual art—art about ideas rather than skill or materials. An artist didn’t even have to make anything.

Duchamp’s readymades continue to influence artists today, including Christoph Büchel, who proposed in 2018 that the prototypes of Donald Trump’s border walls be designated as art because of their “significant cultural value.” Art critic Jerry Saltz called the proposal “brilliant,” writing that, in a post-Trump world, the walls would serve as a “memorial to how close the United States came to giving in to the ghosts of racism, xenophobia, nativism, white nationalism, mediocrity, and a cosmic fear of the other.” Trump’s recent reelection has further complicated the reading of the walls as readymade memorials.

The beauty and absurdity of readymades is that they could theoretically be anything and everything. They elevate ordinary objects to art through their exhibition, prompting viewers to see something through a new lens and to ask questions about their value and meaning.

Since “Fountain,” readymades have almost always been objects. But what if we applied the thinking behind readymades to buildings and spaces? Can a readymade building upend our preexisting understanding of architecture in the same way that Duchamp’s urinal changed the art world?

A readymade building is not just a cheeky, postmodern structure that visually resembles an oversize object, like Ohio’s “big basket” building or Florida’s guitar-shaped Hard Rock hotel. Instead, a readymade building is exactly that—a building—in the same way a readymade object is not an imitation of something else. A readymade building exists as itself.

And just like a readymade object takes on new meaning and significance through its exhibition, a readymade building must do the same. Since the building’s original function has changed through its designation as a readymade, its architect’s original design intent and the building’s original use are superseded by its new form of existence. A readymade building communicates something different by being seen, used, and experienced as a readymade.

There is a building in New York City that satisfies all the criteria of a readymade: 75 East Broadway, a Chinatown mall located beneath the Manhattan Bridge. It is not perceived as a building deserving of critical attention (at least not yet), but the ideas it embodies through its ordinary, day-to-day existence are profound and complex. When designated as a readymade, the mall challenges traditional ideas about how architecture can be analyzed and critiqued.

Perhaps you know this building. It’s the result of the intangible economic and social dynamics of gentrification, which includes the cultural trends that make this kind of space “cool” today. In its current state, the two-story structure serves two radically different types of people: On the first floor, traditional Chinese mom-and-pop stores offer cheap, sometimes counterfeit goods to an older, immigrant, Chinese, working-class population. Upstairs, high-culture boutiques sell avant-garde clothes, bespoke jewelry, and experimental art to a predominantly white, millennial creative class. Despite the drastic differences in age, culture, and socioeconomic status, everyone shares the same space, as shown in the mall directory.

The mall directory is itself a readymade, a readymade object within a readymade building. Meant to serve a utilitarian purpose, the objective list of tenants does not have a single author. But what would this object, if displayed as art in a museum, say? If Trump’s border wall prototypes reveal a kind of xenophobia and racism when displayed as art, what does the mall directory say about those issues?

Although the readymade building can have readymade objects within it, it is more than just a container of things. An architectural readymade is composed of readymade spaces: the walls, rooms, windows, and stairs, and the relationships those material elements create. These spaces are both literal and psychological. The feelings of discomfort that some people might feel in a space—from the Chinese shopkeeper who can’t relate to the crowd at a gallery opening upstairs to the white twentysomething vintage-store owner who never speaks to her Chinese neighbors below—are part of the readymade building too.

Unlike the readymade object, the readymade building is in constant flux. While Duchamp’s urinal will remain in the same state for as long as a climate-controlled museum allows, a readymade building is continuously changing, as people move in and out of it and the objects within it are bought, sold, and replaced. Even its appearance shifts depending on the weather and time of day.

And so, a readymade building cannot be analyzed in the ways buildings typically are, because its value is not in its form or materiality. The readymade building was not designed or planned. It is understood only in how people currently use and experience it, how it exists “as is.”

In this way, the readymade building is all-encompassing. It is not just the spaces or the objects within it. It is everything—the rumble of subways crossing overhead, the glaring fluorescent lights, the fleeting instant when the mall’s intergenerational visitors pass each other in the hallway. This moment could be a readymade performance piece.

What about virtual space? Is that also part of the readymade building? All the TikTok influencers discovering this “hidden” Chinatown mall and sharing it with their thousands of followers?

If a readymade transforms something ordinary into something extraordinary with a totally different meaning, what does this readymade building mean?

Maybe it can be read as a celebration of culture, an unexpected place where young creatives can foster a community of art and fashion. Maybe it’s a sign of hope that these kinds of spaces can still flourish in Manhattan, in Chinatown, without the exorbitant rents of SoHo or Tribeca. And doesn’t the foot traffic generated by the mall’s second-floor businesses support everyone in the area? After all, what’s better than getting tasty dumplings after a day of shopping and gallery-hopping?

Or maybe it can be read as the perfect manifestation of the confused and contradictory place of Asian Americans today as “people of color”—simultaneously a minority group capable of being victims of racism, yet also the highest-earning and most educated “model minorities.” The mall directory suggests that we are okay with this version of segregation and cultural appropriation, with galleries such as “OCDChinatown” sharing a space with “JIAQI PHONE CARD INC.”

In the publication that first featured “Fountain,” in 1917, an anonymous writer summarized the value of the readymade: “Whether Mr. Mutt with his own hands made the fountain or not has no importance,” the person declared. “He CHOSE it. He took an ordinary article of life, placed it so that its useful significance disappeared under the new title and point of view—created a new thought for that object.”

The readymade asks us to focus our attention on ordinary things that we would normally ignore. In the mall, and in New York’s Chinatown at large, there are thousands of objects, interactions, and spaces that require our fresh attention, focused and deliberate consideration about what they actually signify.

One might think about the awning at Kiki’s, a trendy Greek restaurant in the neighborhood that not only kept the signage of the Chinese print shop that previously inhabited the space, but also made a new awning displaying only Chinese characters. What is the sign actually communicating, and to whom? Why is this aesthetic so common and appealing for non-Chinese businesses in Chinatown?

Or consider the stereotypical exchanges on Canal Street, where Chinese (and African) immigrants hawk counterfeit purses to primarily white tourists. If these exact moments were recreated by actors in a theater performance, would they inspire new questions? Would the audience ask, “Why are the racial dynamics in these interactions so consistent, so predictable?”

We need to question these objects, buildings, and moments in Chinatown—and beyond—and analyze them as readymades. Not just because doing so may be an interesting intellectual exercise, but because it allows us to confront the uncomfortable racial and economic dynamics at play in our everyday built environment. We need to see Chinatown as the readymade it is so we can understand how it should change.

For Duchamp, all readymades need to be titled. My title for the mall? “Split Screen: A Sign of the Times.”