Michael S. Kimmelman

Michael S. Kimmelman
Name	Michael S. Kimmelman
Occupation	Architecture critic, journalist, author
Employer	The New York Times

Contents

Michael S. Kimmelman is an American architecture critic, journalist, and author known for his long-running work at The New York Times and his commentary on urbanism, preservation, and public space. He has written extensively on projects by figures such as Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier, Zaha Hadid, Rem Koolhaas, and institutions including the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Guggenheim Museum. His criticism has intersected with debates involving cities like New York City, Paris, London, Berlin, and Beirut while engaging with architects, planners, and cultural leaders such as Jane Jacobs, Robert Moses, Daniel Libeskind, and Bjarke Ingels.

Early life and education

Kimmelman grew up amid cultural institutions and media centers that connected him to figures like Harvard University, Yale University, Columbia University, and Princeton University through family, mentors, or early study, and his education brought him into contact with archival collections at the Library of Congress, the New York Public Library, and the Smithsonian Institution. He studied urban issues that intersected with scholarship from the Urban Institute, the Brookings Institution, and the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, and his formative years included exposure to projects associated with Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown, and Kevin Roche.

Kimmelman began his journalism career with reporting and criticism that connected him to outlets and editors at The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and The Guardian, and he later became the architecture critic for The New York Times where he succeeded predecessors linked to the Pritzker Architecture Prize conversation and to critics such as Ada Louise Huxtable and Paul Goldberger. His work has engaged with interventions by city agencies like the New York City Department of City Planning, preservation debates around the Landmarks Preservation Commission, and redevelopment efforts related to sites such as Battery Park City, Hudson Yards, and the High Line. He reported on reconstruction efforts in cities affected by conflict and disaster, including Hiroshima, Sarajevo, Kabul, and Beirut, and he covered cultural recovery linked to organizations like UNESCO, the World Monuments Fund, and ICOMOS.

Kimmelman’s criticism often connected architectural practice to broader public life through interactions with figures and organizations such as Jane Jacobs, Robert Moses, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Mayor Bill de Blasio, Mayor Rudy Giuliani, and planning institutions like the Regional Plan Association and Rudolf Schindler-era narratives. He wrote about major commissions by firms including Foster + Partners, SOM (Skidmore, Owings & Merrill), Herzog & de Meuron, Santiago Calatrava, and Gehry Partners, LLP, and he explored projects tied to clients like The Rockefeller Foundation, Carnegie Corporation, and The Getty Trust.

Kimmelman authored long-form pieces and curated or contributed to exhibitions and publications that connected icons such as Frank Gehry, I. M. Pei, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and Louis Kahn to debates about preservation at places including the Penn Station, the World Trade Center, and the TWA Flight Center. His reporting intersected with major cultural events like the Venice Biennale, the London Festival of Architecture, the Serpentine Galleries summer pavilions, and exhibitions at the Smithsonian Institution and Centre Pompidou. He wrote about museum commissions such as the Whitney Museum of American Art expansion, the Metropolitan Museum of Art rooftop installations, and the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao phenomenon tied to the Bilbao effect.

Kimmelman produced essays and books that examined urban resilience, postwar reconstruction, and public space, engaging with scholarship and practice represented by Jan Gehl, Kevin Lynch, Christopher Alexander, William H. Whyte, and Lewis Mumford. His major projects often analyzed the impact of large-scale events and plans like the Olympic Games, Expo 67, World's Columbian Exposition, and post-disaster rebuilding in contexts such as Hurricane Katrina-affected New Orleans.

Over his career, Kimmelman has received recognition from institutions including the Pulitzer Prize-connected community, the National Book Critics Circle, the American Institute of Architects, the Municipal Art Society of New York, and the Royal Institute of British Architects for commentary and public-facing analysis. He has been invited to serve on juries and panels alongside members of the Pritzker Architecture Prize committee, critics associated with the RIBA awards, and curators from the Museum of Modern Art and the National Gallery of Art. His work has been cited in scholarly forums tied to Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, Harvard Graduate School of Design, and Yale School of Architecture.

Kimmelman has collaborated with cultural figures and family networks connected to institutions such as the National Endowment for the Arts, the Ford Foundation, and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and his personal engagements have included speaking appearances at venues like Carnegie Hall, the 92nd Street Y, Lincoln Center, and university lecture series at Princeton University and Harvard University. He has been associated with civic and cultural initiatives that involve organizations like the New York Public Library, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and the Queens Museum.

Category:American architecture critics Category:The New York Times people