I write about all manner of topics at Open Culture, and you can find a selection of some of my favorite posts over the years here. I do occasionally write there about cities, architecture, and urbanism, and you’ll find those posts gathered below:
- 1,300 Photos of Famous Modern American Homes Now Online, Courtesy of USC
- Al Jazeera Travel Show Explores World Cities Through Their Street Food
- American Cities Then & Now: See How New York, Los Angeles & Detroit Look Today, Compared to the 1930s and 1940s
- Animated GIFs Show How Subway Maps of Berlin, New York, Tokyo & London Compare to the Real Geography of Those Great Cities
- Art Trips: Visit the Art of Cities Around the World, from Los Angeles & London, to Venice and New York
- Better Living Through Buckminster Fuller’s Utopian Designs: Revisit the Dymaxion Car, House, and Map
- The Birth of London’s 1950s Bohemian Coffee Bars Documented in a Vintage 1959 Newsreel
- Charles Bukowski Takes You on a Very Strange Tour of Hollywood
- The City in Cinema Mini-Documentaries Reveal the Los Angeles of Blade Runner, Her, Drive, Repo Man, and More
- David Byrne: From Talking Heads Frontman to Leading Urban Cyclist
- Denmark’s Utopian Garden City Built Entirely in Circles: See Astounding Aerial Views of Brøndby Haveby
- A Drone’s Eye View of Los Angeles, New York, London, Bangkok & Mexico City
- Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About the Beauty of Brutalist Architecture: An Introduction in Six Videos
- Explore Ancient Athens 3D, a Digital Reconstruction of the Greek City-State at the Height of Its Influence
- Explore the Ruins of Timgad, the “African Pompeii” Excavated from the Sands of Algeria
- Five Cultural Tours of Los Angeles
- Frank Lloyd Wright Designs an Urban Utopia: See His Hand-Drawn Sketches of Broadacre City (1932)
- A Glass Floor in a Dublin Grocery Store Lets Shoppers Look Down & Explore Medieval Ruins
- Glenn Gould Gives Us a Tour of Toronto, His Beloved Hometown (1979)
- The Golden Age of Berlin Comes to Life in the Classic, Avant-Garde Film, Berlin: Symphony of a Metropolis (1927)
- High-Resolution Walking Tours of Italy’s Most Historic Places: The Colosseum, Pompeii, St. Peter’s Basilica & More
- How to Draw Like an Architect: An Introduction in Six Videos
- How the Radical Buildings of the Bauhaus Revolutionized Architecture: A Short Introduction
- Immaculately Restored Film Lets You Revisit Life in New York City in 1911
- An Introduction to Hagia Sophia: After 85 Years as a Museum, It’s Set to Become a Mosque Again
- Invisible Cities Illustrated: Artist Illustrates Each and Every City in Italo Calvino’s Classic Novel
- Istanbul Captured in Beautiful Color Images from 1890: The Hagia Sophia, Topkaki Palace’s Imperial Gate & More
- Japanese Artist Creates Bookshelf Dioramas That Magically Transport You Into Tokyo’s Back Alleys
- Japanese Designer Creates Incredibly Detailed & Realistic Maps of a City That Doesn’t Exist
- The Japanese Sculptor Who Dedicated His Life to Finishing Gaudí’s Magnum Opus, the Sagrada Família
- The Modernist Gas Stations of Frank Lloyd Wright and Mies van der Rohe
- A Photographic Tour of Haruki Murakami’s Tokyo, Where Dream, Memory, and Reality Meet
- Portland, the City in Cinema: See the City of Roses as it Appears in 20 Different Films
- Sci-Fi Legend Ray Bradbury Creates a Visionary Plan to Redesign Los Angeles
- See How Traditional Japanese Carpenters Can Build a Whole Building Using No Nails or Screws
- Take a Visual Journey Through 181 Years of Street Photography (1838-2019)
- Take a 360° Virtual Tour of Taliesin, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Personal Home & Studio
- Take a Digital Drive Along Ed Ruscha’s Sunset Boulevard, the Famous Strip That the Artist Photographed from 1965 to 2007
- Take a Drive Through 1940s, 50s & 60s Los Angeles with Vintage Through-the-Car-Window Films
- Take a Virtual Drive through London, Tokyo, Los Angeles & 45 Other World Cities
- Ten Buildings That Changed America: Watch the Debut Episode from the New PBS Series
- This Huge Crashing Wave in a Seoul Aquarium Is Actually a Gigantic Optical Illusion
- Three Films Capture 1940s New York, Chicago & Los Angeles in Vivid Color
- Time Travel Back to Tokyo After World War II, and See the City in Remarkably High-Quality 1940s Video
- The Tokyoiter: Artists Pay Tribute to the Japanese Capital with New Yorker-Style Magazine Covers
- The Tokyo of Solaris (1972), Andrei Tarkovsky’s Haunting Vision of the Future
- Tony Hawk & Architectural Historian Iain Borden Tell the Story of How Skateboarding Found a New Use for Cities & Architecture
- Visit the Homes That Great Architects Designed for Themselves: Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius & Frank Gehry
- Watch 1920s “City Symphonies” Starring the Great Cities of the World: From New York to Berlin to São Paulo
- Watch Bauhaus World, a Free Documentary That Celebrates the 100th Anniversary of Germany’s Legendary Art, Architecture & Design School
- Watch Manhatta, the First American Avant-Garde Film (1921)
- Watch Randy Newman’s Tour of Los Angeles’ Sunset Boulevard, and You’ll Love L.A. Too
- A Wonderful Archive of Historic Transit Maps: Expressive Art Meets Precise Graphic Design
- “The Wonderground Map of London Town,” the Iconic 1914 Map That Saved the World’s First Subway System
- The World According to Le Corbusier: An Animated Introduction to the Most Modern of All Architects