Podcast appearances and mentions of Alexandra Lange

On this episode we're joined by Alexandra Lange. She is a journalist, design critic, author and teacher. She was recently named the 2025 Pulitzer Prize winner in criticism for a series of pieces at Bloomberg CityLab about designing cities for families. The judges wrote:For graceful and genre-expanding writing about public spaces for families, deftly using interviews, observations and analysis to consider the architectural components that allow children and communities to thrive.Her portfolio encompassed 7 pieces in all, spaced out from March to December of 2024. You can find the stories here:https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/22649Alexandra shared her approach to writing these stories, providing multiple examples of the choices she made at different points along the way. She also spoke about the evolution of architectural criticism and how her writing is similar to that which you would see in op-ed pieces written at the high school, college, or professional level. Alexandra's salutes: Critical Minded and also journalism unionsThank you for listening. You can e-mail me at journalismsalute@gmail.comVisit our website: thejournalismsalute.org Mark's website (MarkSimonmedia.com)Tweet us at @journalismpod and Bluesky at @marksimon.bsky.socialSubscribe to our newsletter– journalismsalute.substack.com

What if shopping malls weren't just retail spaces, but carefully designed social hubs that reveal profound truths about American culture? Alexandra Lange's "Meet Me by the Fountain" takes us on a fascinating journey through the unexpected origins and evolution of one of America's most influential architectural forms.Throughout our conversation, Lange uncovers surprising connections between malls and urbanism. Despite their reputation as anti-urban spaces, malls offer valuable lessons in creating environments where people actually want to spend time. Climate control, ample seating, accessible restrooms, and opportunities for both planned meetings and chance encounters—these simple amenities are often overlooked in our public urban spaces but prove crucial for creating functional social environments. Show Notes:Author Recommended Reading: Radical Suburbs: Experimental Living on the Fringes of the American City by Amanda Hurley The Harvard Design School to Shopping edited by Rem KoolhausWhen Women Ran 5th Avenue: Glamour and Power at the Dawn of American Fashion  by Julie SatowClaire: The little girl who climbed to the top and changed the way women dress by Debra Scala GiokasTo help support the show, pick up a copy of the book through our Amazon Affiliates page at https://amzn.to/44G44gK or even better, get a copy through your local bookstore!To view the show transcripts, click on the episode at https://bookedonplanning.buzzsprout.com/ Follow us on social media for more content related to each episode:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/booked-on-planning/Twitter: https://twitter.com/BookedPlanningFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/bookedonplanningInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/bookedonplanning/

A group of artists explored the back hallways of a mall in Providence, RI, and found the perfect place to build a private hangout. We interviewed the group's leader Michael Townsend a few years back, and he's now the subject of a new documentary called Secret Mall Apartment. Plus, mall history with Alexandra Lange.For showtimes and more information, visit secretmallapartment.com.The stories in this episode originally aired in 2018 and 2022.Secret Mall Apartments Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes of 99% Invisible ad-free and get exclusive access to bonus episodes. Start a free trial now on Apple Podcasts or by visiting siriusxm.com/podcastsplus.

A pioneer in her field, Catherine Bauer Wurster was advisor to five presidents on urban planning and housing and was one of the primary authors of the Housing Act of 1937. During the 1930s she wrote the influential book Modern Housing and was one of the leaders of the "housers" movement, advocating for affordable housing for low-income families.  Catherine Bauer's life divided into two names and two geographies:  her urban east coast youth, and her later life in the Bay Area. She hobnobbed with the bohemian elite of the interwar years….brilliantly charming  the big architect names of the Weimar Republic, Paris cafe society, and the International Style:  Gropius, Mies, Corbusier, Oud, May, and her lover, Lewis Mumford. Her glamour and charismatic presence endeared her to trade unionists, labor leaders, and politicians—who she tried to turn to her vision of housing as a worthy responsibility of the government—sexier and leftier during the Depression. Her arguments were a harder sell in the red scare fifties and ran into a dreary deadlock in the suburban sixties, as she later wrote from her west coast stronghold at the University of California, Berkeley. In the Bay Area she developed an academic career that also included her husband architect William Wurster, a daughter, and a house on the bay – all surrounded by the nature she quickly grew to love. Her legacy lives on to this day, as even the latest of housing legislation echoes the progressive ideals she was advocating for in her prime.  Produced by Brandi Howell for the New Angle Voice podcast from the Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation. Editorial advising from Alexandra Lange. Thanks to host Cynthia Phifer Kracauer. Special thanks in this episode to Barbara Penner, Gwendolyn Wright, Sadie Super, Matthew Gordon Lasner, Katelin Penner, and Carol Galante.  Archival recordings are from the UC Berkeley Bancroft Library. Funding from the New York State Council on the Arts.The Kitchen Sisters Present is produced by The Kitchen Sisters (Nikki Silva & Davia Nelson) with Nathan Dalton and Brandi Howell. The Kitchen Sisters Present is part of Radiotopia from PRX.

Pushed to the side and rarely credited for her architectural work at Davis Brody,  Phyllis Birkby became a significant figure in extending the lesbian women's movement to architecture during the 1970s. Her environmental fantasy workshops played a crucial role in galvanizing the community, providing a creative and empowering space within a male-dominated profession. Growing out of other consciousness raising techniques, freed up in her classes, Phyllis released the rigor of her conventional training to get down on the floor,  and lead the group in sketching their fantasies however outlandish on giant rolls of butcher paper.  She encouraged the women to imagine architecture above, below, and beyond the norm. Birkby's work not only contributed to architectural discourse but also fostered a sense of collective identity among lesbian architects, highlighting the intersectionality of gender, sexuality, and professional identity in the field. In her later years, she focused on architecture for people marginalized in other ways – by addiction, by age, and by disability, again imagining spaces of community and support.This episode was produced by Brandi Howell for New Angle Voice, a podcast from Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation. Thanks to host Cynthia Phifer Kracauer.  Thanks also to Alexandra Lange for editorial advising.   Special thanks in this episode to Stephen Vider, MC Overholt, Gabrielle Esperdy, Matthew Wagstaffe, Leslie Kanes Weisman and the Smith College Special Collections.  Funding from the New York State Council on the Arts.  The Kitchen Sisters Present is produced by The Kitchen Sisters (Nikki Silva & Davia Nelson) with Nathan Dalton and Brandi Howell. The Kitchen Sisters Present is part of Radiotopia from PRX.kitchen@kitchensisters.org

07Welcome to New Angle Voice: I'm your bi-coastal architect and host, Cynthia Phifer Kracauer. Catherine Bauer's life divided into two names and two geographies:  her urban east coast youth, and her Bay Area soft landing.  She hobnobbed with the bohemian elite of the interwar years….brilliantly charming the pants off of the big architect names of the Weimar Republic, Paris cafe society, and the International Style:  Gropius, Mies, Corb, Oud, May…with her lover, Lewis Mumford—culminating in the publication of her 1934 classic :  Modern Housing.   Her glamour and charismatic presence endeared her to trade unionists, labor leaders, and politicians, including five presidents—who she tried to turn to her vision of housing as a worthy responsibility of the government—sexier and leftier during the Depression. Her arguments were a harder sell in the red scare fifties and ran into a dreary deadlock in the suburban sixties, as she later wrote from her west coast stronghold at the University of California, Berkeley. In the Bay Area she developed an academic career that also included a husband, a daughter, and a house on the bay – all surrounded by the nature she quickly grew to love. Her legacy lives on to this day, as even the latest of housing legislation echoes the progressive ideals she was advocating for in her prime.   Hear now:  Catherine Bauer Wurster:  A Thoroughly Modern Woman.   Special thanks in this episode to Barbara Penner, Gwendolyn Wright, Sadie Super, Matthew Gordon Lasner, Katelin Penner, and Carol Galante.  Archival recordings are from the UC Berkeley Bancroft Library.   This podcast is produced by Brandi Howell, with editorial advising from Alexandra Lange. New Angle Voice is brought to you by the Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation.  Funding for this podcast comes from the New York State Council on the Arts. You can find other episodes of New Angle: Voice wherever you find your podcasts.  And if you liked this episode, please leave a review and share with a friend.    

This episode, we're going to a place where the lights are bright, the music is dim, and everything smells vaguely like cookies, pretzels, and overpriced lotions. That's right, we're going to the mall. Despite many predictions of near death, the mall is alive and well in many parts of the USA (and parts of the world). For this episode, we discuss Alexandra Lange's 2022 book Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall. Lange's architectural history takes us all the way back to the beginning, which in the case of malls, is not that long ago. Starting with early American malls in post-war America, Lange offers a sharp overview of how malls came to be and considers where they are still thriving now. We talk about our own relationships to malls and bigger questions raised by these American institutions. Is the mall a useful third space for communities? Or, are malls simply the best place to be wowed by build-a-bear operations and rollercoasters? Original air date: January 29, 2024

We continue our throw-back to the seventies, and take a deeper dive into the many facets of the women's movement that impacted the practice of architecture.  Pushed to the side and rarely credited for her architectural work at Davis Brody,  Phyllis Birkby became a significant figure in extending the lesbian women's movement to architecture during the 1970s. Her environmental fantasy workshops played a crucial role in galvanizing the community, providing a creative and empowering space within a male-dominated profession.  Growing out of other consciousness raising techniques, freed up in her classes, Phyllis released the rigor of her conventional training to get down on the floor,  and lead the group in sketching their fantasies however outlandish on giant rolls of butcher paper.  She encouraged the women to imagine architecture above, below, and beyond the norm.  Birkby's work not only contributed to architectural discourse but also fostered a sense of collective identity among lesbian architects, highlighting the intersectionality of gender, sexuality, and professional identity in the field. In her later years, she focused on architecture for people marginalized in other ways – by addiction, by age, and by disability, again imagining spaces of community and support. Welcome to Beyond Architecture: The Fantasy Worlds of Phyllis Birkby   Special thanks in this episode to Stephen Vider, MC Overholt, Gabrielle Esperdy, Matthew Wagstaffe, Leslie Kanes Weisman and the Smith College Special Collections.   This podcast is produced by Brandi Howell, with editorial advising from Alexandra Lange.  New Angle Voice is brought to you by the Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation.  Funding for this podcast comes from the New York State Council on the Arts.  

In 1977, a cavernous, rarely used sculpture gallery in the Brooklyn Museum was filled with drafting tables, their tops tilted to display collages of the work and under-told stories of women working in architecture in the United States.We revisit this first significant effort to publicly tell the little known stories of American women in architecture: “Women in American Architecture: A Historic and Contemporary Perspective.” On view at the Brooklyn Museum from February-April of 1977, the groundbreaking exhibition and simultaneous book, curated and edited by Susana Torre, clearly defined the state of play for women in the architecture profession. Alienated by the profound hostility expressed by the AIA, women architects came together and found an accepting cohort at the Architectural League of New York. They organized. They canvassed. They raised their consciousnesses. The project team identified subjects so previously obscured as to be unknown, and then with the energy and drive of a furious mob, they broke through and laid the groundwork for scholarship, social change, and recognition of women architects for the next fifty years.  Produced by Brandi Howell, for the Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation's podcast New Angle Voice.Special thanks to Susana Torre, Andrea Merrett, Suzanne Stephens, Cynthia Rock, Deborah Nevins, and Robert AM Stern. Editorial advising from Alexandra Lange and production assistance from Virginia Eskridge and Aislinn McNamara. Funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Graham Foundation.The Kitchen Sisters Present, part of PRX's Radiotopia network, is produced by The Kitchen Sisters (Nikki Silva & Davia Nelson) with Nathan Dalton and Brandi Howell. For more stories and information visit kitchensisters.org. 

This is a special episode featuring author, Alexandra Lange, who wrote one of my favorite books, Meet Me by the Fountain all about the inside history of shopping malls. We discuss our favorite mall architecture, current state of malls, future trends and much more! Enjoy and thank you for listening!

That was some party. Even though I didn't make it to the splashy opening, I did attend the transformational exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum, our subject in this episode. A rarely used sculpture gallery was filled with ranks and files of cheap drafting tables, their tops tilted to display what seemed to be pages out of the book, one spread to a table. It overwhelmed with information—but seemed void of the chatter of us working women.   Welcome to New Angle Voice, I'm your host, Cynthia Kracauer.  In this episode, we revisit the first significant effort to publicly tell the under-told stories of American women in architecture: “Women in American Architecture: A Historic and Contemporary Perspective.” On view at the Brooklyn Museum from February-April of 1977, the groundbreaking exhibition and simultaneous book, curated and edited by Susana Torre, clearly defined the state of play for women in the architecture profession. Alienated by the profound hostility expressed by the AIA, women architects found an accepting cohort at the Architectural League of New York. We organized. We canvassed. We raised our consciousnesses. The project team identified subjects so previously obscured as to be unknown, and then with the energy and drive of a furious mob, they broke through and laid the groundwork for scholarship, social change, and recognition of women architects for the next fifty years. Get your consciousness raised: listen to our voices. Here's “Laying the Groundwork: Women in American Architecture, Spring 1977.”   Special thanks in this episode to Susana Torre, Andrea Merrett, Suzanne Stephens, Cynthia Rock, Deborah Nevins, and Robert AM Stern. This podcast is produced by Brandi Howell, with editorial advising from Alexandra Lange. Thanks also to production assistants Virginia Eskridge and Aislinn McNamara. New Angle Voice is brought to you by the Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation. Funding for this podcast comes from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Graham Foundation. We are beginning our third season, and hope that if you have followed our progress, that you will want to continue to support our ongoing efforts to tell women's stories of challenge, struggle and success. Visit our website to make a contribution. www.bwaf.org.  

Une femme a été acquittée pour le meurtre de son compagnon, un homme qu'elle a tué lors d'une dispute et dans un climat de violences conjugales. Un homme contre lequel elle avait déjà porté plainte. Le 20 juin 2021, Angélique a donné un coup de couteau près du cœur de son conjoint alors qu'il venait de tenter de l'étrangler. Les jurés ont retenu la légitime défense, estimant que cette femme aujourd'hui âgée de 48 ans n'a fait que se défendre. Angélique est sortie libre de son procès après deux ans et demi de détention. Elle rejoint trois autres femmes, Alexandra Lange, Florianne Herelle et Adriana Sampaïo, qui elles aussi ont été acquittées après avoir tué leur conjoint violent. Une femme qui tue, mais qui tue pour se défendre. Comment en arrive-t-on à cette situation? Pourquoi la légitime défense est-elle reconnue dans cette affaire? Y-at-il eu des défaillances dans la prise en charge des violences qui ont précédé ce qui reste un drame, la mort d'un homme? Avec Maitre Isabelle Steyer, avocate spécialiste des violences conjugales.

Sarah “Sally” Pillsbury and Jean B. Fletcher were both architects who married architects. The two women and their husbands were founding members of The Architects Collaborative (TAC), a visionary, idealistic architecture firm founded just after WWII. The two women, who had 13 children between them, lived with their families and several other founding partners in Six Moon Hill, a residential community in Lexington, Massachusetts, designed by the group. TAC was a world class firm of eight architects, including famed architect Walter Gropius, working collectively as a team, stressing anonymity of design. The group won design awards and competitions, and was hired by the National Institute of Architects to design their new headquarters.They also designed the Harvard Graduate Center, many civic and educational buildings, and the University of Baghdad. Soon after the founding of the firm in 1947, Sarah and Jean wrote an article for House & Garden titled “Architecture, Family Style” which – as their biographer Michael Kubo writes – constituted something of a manifesto for the changing needs of the postwar housewife. Produced by Brandi Howell for Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation's podcast New Angle: Voice with host Cynthia Krakauer. Editorial advising from Alexandra Lange.  Production assistants Virginia Eskridge and Aislinn McNamara. Special thanks to Sara Harkness and Joseph Fletcher, Michael Kubo and Amanda Kolson Hurley.  Current Six Moon Hill residents Linda Pagani and Barbara Katzenberg kindly opened their homes and shared their stories.  Long time TAC  partners Perry Neubauer and Gail Flynn were generous with their time as were Andrea Leers and Jane Weinzapfel.  The archival oral history of Sally Harkness comes from her interview with Wendy Cox. Funding for New Angle: Voice comes from National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Graham Foundation. The Kitchen Sisters Present is produced by The Kitchen Sisters (Nikki Silva & Davia Nelson) with Brandi Howell and Nathan Dalton. Supported by the National Endowment for the Arts and contributors to the non profit Kitchen Sisters Productions. The Kitchen Sisters Present is part of Radiotopia from PRX, a curated network of podcasts created by independent producers.

Sarah Pillsbury, or Sally as she was better known by her peers, and Jean Bodman were both architects who married architects.  As an architect who also married an architect, my perspective may be more inside baseball on the professional side, but utter awe and fascination on the family end. I'm Cynthia Phifer Kracauer, architect, Executive Director of the Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation, mother of only two, and your host.   Welcome to our last episode of New Angle Voice 2023.  It's hard to look at the early days of TAC—the Architects Collaborative—for a time a world-class firm founded by two husband/wife couples and a handful of their classmates … with Walter Gropius thrown in to give them the gravitas that concealed their youth—without a bit of nostalgia.  Nostalgia for the naïve progressive ideology, nostalgia for that post World War 2 hope that the world could be remade through architecture—after all, Europe was rubble—and utter amazement that the firm fared as well as long as it did.  TAC was admired by women of my generation who saw two women partners with 13 children between them, garnering design awards, winning competitions, and acting on a world stage with far flung offices and impressive civic and institutional work.  For goodness sakes the National American Institute of Architects hired them for their new headquarters!  What could be more iconic.   Soon after the founding of the firm in 1947, Sarah and Jean wrote an article for House & Garden titled “Architecture, Family Style” which – as their biographer Michael Kubo writes – constituted something of a manifesto for the changing needs of the postwar housewife. But as we all know, sometimes youthful dreams don't pan out. In this episode, we revisit the utopian fantasy that the Architects Collaborative built and take a look inside.  “Architecture, Family Style – The Lives and Work of Sarah Harkness and Jean Fletcher".   Special thanks in this episode to Sara Harkness and Joseph Fletcher, Michael Kubo and Amanda Kolson Hurley.  Current Six Moon Hill residents Linda Pagani and Barbara Katzenberg kindly opened their homes and shared their stories.  Long time TAC  partners Perry Neubauer and Gail Flynn were generous with their time as were Andrea Leers and Jane Weinzapfel.  The archival oral history of Sally Harkness comes from her interview with Wendy Cox.   This podcast is produced by Brandi Howell, with editorial advising from Alexandra Lange.   Thanks also to production assistants Virginia Eskridge and Aislinn McNamara. New Angle Voice is brought to you by the Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation.  Funding for this podcast comes from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Graham Foundation.  

Anna Wagner Keichline (1889–1943) was the first registered woman architect in Pennsylvania and was among the first registered women architects in the United States. During her long career, she designed dozens of commercial and residential buildings, as well as numerous industrial products. She was awarded seven patents for her innovative residential and building designs, including one for The Building Block (1927), popularly known as the K-brick, which was a forerunner of today's concrete block. Not every architect has the opportunity to build skyscrapers. In Bellefonte, Anna used her talents to improve the lives of her neighbors, by designing their houses and gathering places. She adopted a gently accommodating architectural style in the shadow of high Victorian lacery, and designed sturdy churches, theaters, homes, schools, and recreation facilities in her hometown that still stand well and firmly in their context. Produced by Brandi Howell for New Angle Voice podcast of the Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation. Host, Cynthia Kracauer. Editorial advising from Alexandra Lange. Thanks to production assistant Virginia Eskridge and special thanks to Nancy Perkins, Sarah Lichtman, and Jennifer Kaufmann-Buhler. Funding for this podcast comes from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Graham Foundation. The Kitchen Sisters Present is produced by The Kitchen Sisters (Nikki Silva & Davia Nelson) with Brandi Howell and Nathan Dalton. From PRX's Radiotopia network.

On this episode of Angreement Michelle and Katherine are deep in the midst of existential crises. So of course, we're talking ice cream and balloons! There's a healthy dose of time-management history leading to labor politics despair (and optimism, and absurdism) as well as some satisfying callbacks to great songs and much, much more! Ikea Heights, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3033772/ “See the First Balloon World Cup's Electric Finale,” CNN https://edition.cnn.com/videos/sports/2021/10/18/balloon-world-cup-competition-mh-orig.cnn The Vulture Fantasy Movie League! (Join our team, team name: https://www.vulture.com/movies-league/ “Waltzing Matilda, an Old Cold Case,” ABC News, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2010-02-12/waltzing-matilda-an-old-cold-case/329506 “The Woman Who Invented the Kitchen,” by Alexandra Lange, Slate, https://slate.com/human-interest/2012/10/lillian-gilbreths-kitchen-practical-how-it-reinvented-the-modern-kitchen.html “Yes, Your Cat Can Tell if You're Out All Night,” by Alexa Lardieri, US News, https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2018-10-23/study-animals-can-tell-time#:~:text=Yes%2C%20Your%20Cat%20Can%20Tell%20if%20You%27re%20Out%20All,found%20that%20animals%20understand%20time. (Closing song, “Waltzing Matilda,” performed by Johnny Cash (1981) courtesy of Johnny Cash Infocenter, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KL4v7UrqcF4 )

1913 was the year of the grand march for suffrage in Washington DC, the 250,000 marchers and attendees eclipsed the coverage the following day of the inauguration of Woodrow Wilson.  Bellefonte, Pennsylvania, population 4216, had its own march, on the fourth of July. Costumes were di rigeur, with a goodly number of  stately toga clad ladies and a few wild harridans on horseback, along with our intrepid girl in her Cornell cap and gown:  Anna Wagner Keichline… a native Bellefutian. We had to see this for ourselves.  So I saddled up my 2002 Honda Minivan, and made the five hour drive from New York City west on Route 80 through gently rolling Allegheny mountains to find Bellefonte and interview Nancy Perkins, her grand niece.  Nancy, a designer herself, has become the engine of Anna's transformation from a local talent to a polymath of invention.  Nancy is dedicated to preserving the work of her aunt.   She has gathered photos, patents, plans and drawings, and even has a “k-brick”, perhaps Anna's best known invention - a composite form of brick that foreshadows our modern and ubiquitous concrete block.     Not every architect has the opportunity to build skyscrapers. In Bellefonte, Anna used her talents to improve the lives of her neighbors, by designing their houses and gathering places.  She adopted a gently accommodating architectural style in the shadow of all that high Victorian lacery, and designed sturdy churches, theaters, homes, schools, and recreation facilities in her hometown that still stand well and firmly in their context. Today, we present her story:  Anna Wagner Keichline: The Legacy of Invention.   Special thanks in this episode to Nancy Perkins, Sarah Lichtman, and Jennifer Kaufmann-Buhler. This podcast is produced by Brandi Howell, with editorial advising from Alexandra Lange.   Thanks also to production assistant Virginia Eskridge. New Angle Voice is brought to you by the Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation.  Funding for this podcast comes from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Graham Foundation.       

Born in 1895 in Lynchburg, VA, Amaza Lee Meredith was an African American architect, artist and educator who taught at Virginia State College where she founded the art department. Despite the fact she was never a registered architect, she was one of the few Black architects practicing at the time, and one of the country's very few Black women architects. In 1939, Amaza designed Azurest South, a tidy white International Style house on the edge of the Virginia State University Campus, where she and her life-long partner Edna Meade Colson lived. Both women maintained significant teaching positions at the University, living openly queer lives. In 1947 Amaza and her sister Maude began developing Azura North, a 120 lot subdivision and vacation destination for middle class African Americans in Sag Harbor, New York, near the summer haunts of Melville, Steinbeck, Betty Friedan, Spaulding Gray. During the 1950s & 60s the community grew as a Black vacation spot attracting celebrities like Lena Horne and Harry Belafonte. Together, the homes and communities that Amaza Lee Meredith helped establish provided a sense of joy, pleasure, and a safe haven for members of the Black community, at a time when this wasn't always possible. This episode explores the intersections of sexuality, modernity, art, architecture, and the faith community that nurtured this pair of lovers.  Amaza and Edna found their home in each other and shared it openly with their church, their colleagues and their students. Special thanks to host Cynthia Kracauer, writers Jacqueline Taylor and Jessica Lynne, and to Brooke Williams who graciously provided Sag Harbor resident insights, as did advocates and preservationists Georgette Grier-Key, Michael Butler, and Renee Simons.  And to Reverend Grady Powell and Reverend Dr.  George WC Lyons from Gillfield Baptist Church in Petersburg, Virginia. Franklin Johnson-Norwood is the Director of Alumni Relations at Virginia State University, and our excellent tour guide for Azurest South, and to Christina Morris of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. This episode was produced by Brandi Howell for the podcast New Angle Voice, a presentation of the Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation. Editorial advising from Alexandra Lange and assistance from Virginia Eskridge. Funding provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Graham Foundation. Take a look at the illustrated Amaza Lee Meredith profile on the Pioneering Women of Architecture website. The Kitchen Sisters Present is produced by The Kitchen Sisters (Nikki Silva & Davia Nelson) with Brandi Howell and Nathan Dalton. Funding for these programs comes from The National Endowment for the Arts, the Kaleta Doolin Foundation, and contributors to the non profit Kitchen Sisters Productions. The Kitchen Sisters Present is part of the Radiotopia Network from PRX.

Writer and design critic Alexandra Lange talks about her book, Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Shopping Mall (Bloombury, 2023), with Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel. Meet Me by the Fountain is a history of the American shopping mall from its emergence to recent attempts to reinvent and reconceptualize the shells of “dead” shopping centers. Along the way, it details the mall's many ironies and contradictions and how it became the center and icon of community and culture, especially youth culture, in the late 20th century. Lange and Vinsel also discuss Lange's larger career and her work as an architecture and design critic. Lee Vinsel is an associate professor in the Department of Science, Technology and Society at Virginia Tech. He studies human life with technology, with particular focus on the relationship between government, business, and technological change. His first book, Moving Violations: Automobiles, Experts, and Regulations in the United States, was published by Johns Hopkins University Press in July 2019. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Writer and design critic Alexandra Lange talks about her book, Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Shopping Mall (Bloombury, 2023), with Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel. Meet Me by the Fountain is a history of the American shopping mall from its emergence to recent attempts to reinvent and reconceptualize the shells of “dead” shopping centers. Along the way, it details the mall's many ironies and contradictions and how it became the center and icon of community and culture, especially youth culture, in the late 20th century. Lange and Vinsel also discuss Lange's larger career and her work as an architecture and design critic. Lee Vinsel is an associate professor in the Department of Science, Technology and Society at Virginia Tech. He studies human life with technology, with particular focus on the relationship between government, business, and technological change. His first book, Moving Violations: Automobiles, Experts, and Regulations in the United States, was published by Johns Hopkins University Press in July 2019. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history

Writer and design critic Alexandra Lange talks about her book, Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Shopping Mall (Bloombury, 2023), with Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel. Meet Me by the Fountain is a history of the American shopping mall from its emergence to recent attempts to reinvent and reconceptualize the shells of “dead” shopping centers. Along the way, it details the mall's many ironies and contradictions and how it became the center and icon of community and culture, especially youth culture, in the late 20th century. Lange and Vinsel also discuss Lange's larger career and her work as an architecture and design critic. Lee Vinsel is an associate professor in the Department of Science, Technology and Society at Virginia Tech. He studies human life with technology, with particular focus on the relationship between government, business, and technological change. His first book, Moving Violations: Automobiles, Experts, and Regulations in the United States, was published by Johns Hopkins University Press in July 2019. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/architecture

Writer and design critic Alexandra Lange talks about her book, Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Shopping Mall (Bloombury, 2023), with Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel. Meet Me by the Fountain is a history of the American shopping mall from its emergence to recent attempts to reinvent and reconceptualize the shells of “dead” shopping centers. Along the way, it details the mall's many ironies and contradictions and how it became the center and icon of community and culture, especially youth culture, in the late 20th century. Lange and Vinsel also discuss Lange's larger career and her work as an architecture and design critic. Lee Vinsel is an associate professor in the Department of Science, Technology and Society at Virginia Tech. He studies human life with technology, with particular focus on the relationship between government, business, and technological change. His first book, Moving Violations: Automobiles, Experts, and Regulations in the United States, was published by Johns Hopkins University Press in July 2019. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

I picked up a free glossy real estate magazine with an enticing photograph of summer leisure pursuits under the title Sag Harbor: A Whale of a Good Time. We traveled out there in early spring, collecting voices of preservation, community, celebrity, and long tenured summer families as we searched for Amaza Lee Meredith's modern architecture. A short bike ride away from the summer haunts of Melville, Steinbeck, Betty Friedan, Spaulding Gray, lived the creator of Azurest North, the Black summer real estate enclave syndicated by Amaza Lee Meredith with her sister Maude Terry. But on the beach we found only Maude's name enshrined on the commemorative plaque.   For decades, Amaza and her life-long partner Edna Meade Colson, made an annual migration to enjoy the respite and comfort of their shared northern home.  Hundreds of miles south is their other Azurest—a tidy white International Style house on the edge of the Virginia State University Campus where Meredith and Colson both maintained significant teaching positions, living openly queer lives.   Together, the homes and communities that Meredith helped establish provided a sense of joy and pleasure to those at a time when this wasn't always possible.  And her story, as it continues to unfold with time, is a point of inspiration for those who have been lucky enough to discover it.   In this episode, we explore the intersections of sexuality, modernity, art, architecture, and the faith community that nurtured this pair of lovers.  Amaza and Edna found their home in each other and shared it openly with their church, their colleagues and their students.   Listen to Amaza Lee Meredith:  Love and Home. Special thanks to writers Jacqueline Taylor and Jessica Lynne, and to Brooke Williams who graciously provided Sag Harbor resident insights, as did advocates and preservationists Georgette Grier-Key, Michael Butler, and Renee Simons.  And to Reverend Grady Powell and Reverend Dr.  George WC Lyons from Gillfield Baptist Church in Petersburg, Virginia. Franklin Johnson-Norwood is the Director of Alumni Relations at Virginia State University, and our excellent tour guide for Azurest South, and to Christina Morris of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.  New Angle Voice is a presentation of the Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation.  This podcast is produced by Brandi Howell, with editorial advising from Alexandra Lange.  Virginia Eskridge provides daily assistance.   Generous funding for this season has been provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Graham Foundation.  Take a look at the illustrated Amaza Lee Meredith profile on the Pioneering Women of Architecture website. 

We're thrilled to talk with two of America's foremost architecture critics, recorded in New York City. Alexandra Lange is an award-winning architectural critic for Curbed.com and the author of several books on architecture and America's built environment. A graduate of NYU's Institute of Fine Arts and a former Loeb Fellow in the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, her most recent book is Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall. Paul Goldberger is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and educator who made his mark as an architecture critic for the New York Times. A New Jersey native, Paul studied art history at Yale University and then settled in NYC, where he now serves as the Joseph Urban Chair in Design and Architecture at The New School. He is the author of a number of books on architecture, and an advisor on matters of architecture and design to institutions all over the country. His latest book is DUMBO: The Making of a New York Neighborhood. 

Anyone who writes about American architecture of the mid twentieth and early 21 st century measures their critical achievement with the yardstick drawn by Ada Louise Huxtable. With countless articles for two great daily newspapers, this petite New Yorker had a gigantic influence on our understanding of the work of architects, real estate developers, city bureaucrats, and the city itself, over the course of six decades in print. General readers are quite accustomed to having their choices in books, films, dance, opera, drama, TV, and music directed and influenced by critics opinions. We find our favorite interpreters, trust their judgements, buy books or tickets. But in the concrete jungle of the city, we are captives, we have no choice to ignore what is built by others to house us, for our work places, our transit systems, our public realm. The ubiquity of mediocre architecture dulls the senses, and yet, when architecture achieves greatness it can exalt the human spirit. Ada Louise Huxtable set out to separate the dull from the great. A few architects tried to argue with her. They never won. With her impeccable civic values, cultivated aesthetic sensibility and lacerating accuracy she praised and razed. Listen now to The Art We Must Live With: Ada Louise Huxtable and Architecture Criticism.   Special thanks in this episode to the generous architectural critics:  Alexandra Lange, Cathleen McGuigan, Christopher Hawthorne, Julie Iovine, Karrie Jacobs, Christine Cipriani and Paul Goldberger–all achieved their craft following the inimitable example set by Ada Louise.  Historian Meredith Clausen, Wall Street Journal editor Eric Gibson, and the Huxtable archive team of Stuart and Beverly Denenburg, and from the Getty Center:  Maristella Casciato everyone was exceedingly helpful.   This podcast is produced by Brandi Howell, with editorial advising from Alexandra Lange.   Thanks also production assistant Virginia Eskridge.  New Angle Voice is brought to you by the Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation.  Funding for this podcast comes from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Graham Foundation.   

In the late 1990s, American malls were the place to be. Families from around the world vacationed at the Mall of America. Teens flocked to Britney Spears' Hair Zone Mall Tour. A nine-year-old Jonathan basked in the fine fragrance mists of Juniper Breeze. Today, there are only around 700 indoor malls in the US, and more are in the midst of shuttering. What happened to these institutions? This week, Alexandra Lange joins Jonathan to discuss the rise, fall, and potential resurrection of the American mall. Alexandra Lange is a design critic and author of “Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall.” Her essays, reviews and features have been published in the New York Times, The New Yorker and New York Magazine, as well as in design publications including Bloomberg Citylab, Elle Decor and Curbed. She lives in Brooklyn and walks in Brooklyn Bridge Park almost every day.  You can follow her on Instagram @langealexandra and on Twitter @LangeAlexandra. And you can purchase a copy of Meet Me by the Fountain here! Bloomsbury Publishing is on Instagram @bloomsburypublishing and on Twitter @BloomsburyPub. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter @CuriousWithJVN to join the conversation. Jonathan is on Instagram and Twitter @JVN and @Jonathan.Vanness on Facebook. Transcripts for each episode are available at JonathanVanNess.com. Find books from past Getting Curious guests at bookshop.org/shop/curiouswithjvn; we'll be updating it soon with more releases! Our executive producer is Erica Getto. Our editor is Andrew Carson. Production support from Julie Carrillo, Chris McClure, and Erin McKeon. Our theme music is “Freak” by QUIÑ; for more, head to TheQuinCat.com. Headshot credit for Alexandra: Mark Wickens

Many know Ray Eames as the small, dirndled woman behind her more famous husband, Charles Eames. But Ray was the industrial designer bending plywood in the spare bedroom, a talented artist who saw the world full of color, the visionary who treated folk art, cigarette wrappers, flowers, and toys as equally valuable and inspiring. Ray brought the sparkle and inspiration to the legendary Eames Office. The Kitchen Sisters Present Ray Eames from the New Angle Voice a podcast of the Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation, produced by Brandi Howell. Editorial advising from Alexandra Lange. Thanks also to Virginia Eskridge, and Amy Auscherman, Director of Archives and Brand Heritage for MillerKnoll. The archival audio heard in this episode comes from the MillerKnoll archives and the Smithsonian Archives of American Art. Intro music composed by Emma Jackson. Special thanks to Pat Kirkham, Lucia Dewey Atwood, Llisa Demetrios, Jeannine Oppewall, Donald Albrecht, Meg McAleer and Tracey Barton at the Library of Congress, and Alexandra Lange. Funding for this podcast comes from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Graham Foundation, and MillerKnoll. Funding for The Kitchen Sisters comes from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Susan Sillans Foundation, and contributors to The Kitchen Sisters non profit productions.

New Angle: Voice is back! We kick off Season Two with Ray Kaiser Eames. Many know Ray Eames as the small, dirndled woman behind her more famous husband. In this episode, we uncover the talented artist who saw the world full of color, the industrial designer bending plywood in the spare bedroom, and the visionary who treated folk art, cigarette wrappers, flowers, and toys as equally valuable and inspiring. Ray brought the sparkle to the legendary Eames Office, as you'll discover in this episode “Beauty in the Everyday: The Life and Work of Ray Eames.” Special thanks in this episode to Pat Kirkham, Lucia Dewey Atwood, Llisa Demetrios, Jeannine Oppewall, Donald Albrecht, Meg McAleer and Tracey Barton at the Library of Congress, and Alexandra Lange.  This podcast is produced by Brandi Howell, with editorial advising from Alexandra Lange.   Thanks also to Virginia Eskridge, and Amy Auscherman, Director of Archives and Brand Heritage for MillerKnoll.  The archival audio heard in this episode comes from the MillerKnoll archives and the Smithsonian Archives of American Art.  Intro music composed by Emma Jackson.   New Angle Voice is brought to you by the Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation.  Funding for this podcast comes from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Graham Foundation, and MillerKnoll.  

For decades we've heard that shopping malls are withering away. So why is the Galleria packed? In this rebroadcast of a favorite show from summer, Alexandra Lange, author of “Meet Me at the Fountain,” joins City Cast architecture contributor Allyn West and host Lisa Gray. Alexandra Lange's Book: https://www.amazon.com/Meet-Me-Fountain-Inside-History-ebook/dp/B09JXK1KBL Subscribe to our newsletter Hey houston to get the latest updates on what's popping at https://houston.citycast.fm/newsletter/ Follow us on twitter for updates on what we war doing at https://twitter.com/CityCastHouston Follow our Instagram to see what we're doing at https://www.instagram.com/citycasthouston/ And if you just want to cut through the noise and tells something directly leave us a voicemail or call us at +1 713-489-6972 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What are some nostalgic things you remember doing at the mall? For V, it was working their first job at Bath and Body Works, buying CDs from Radio Shack, and watching people take glamour shots at JCPenney. The mall was once poppin', and it used to be the hottest place to build. What happened? Architecture critic and author Alexandra Lange joins V to talk about the inside history of the mall, from the design features that make malls an iconic American institution to when their popularity began to drop off. Plus, where the “dead mall” narrative came from and why repurposing them could help communities like the unhoused.  Follow Alexandra at @langealexandra on Twitter and Instagram. Keep up with V on TikTok at @underthedesknews and on Twitter at @VitusSpehar. And stay up to date with us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at @LemonadaMedia. Click this link for a list of current sponsors and discount codes for this show and all Lemonada shows go to lemonadamedia.com/sponsors.Joining Lemonada Premium is a great way to support our show and get bonus content. Subscribe today at bit.ly/lemonadapremium.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week, Felix Salmon, Emily Peck, and Elizabeth Spiers are joined by design critic Alexandra Lange to talk about her book Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall on the evolution of shopping malls in America. In the Plus segment: How online shopping has affected malls.   Podcast production by Jessamine Molli. Thanks Avast.com! Learn more about Avast One at Avast.com If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get benefits like zero ads on any Slate podcast, bonus episodes of shows like Slow Burn and Dear Prudence—and you'll be supporting the work we do here on Slate Money. Sign up now at slate.com/moneyplus to help support our work. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, Felix Salmon, Emily Peck, and Elizabeth Spiers are joined by design critic Alexandra Lange to talk about her book Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall on the evolution of shopping malls in America. In the Plus segment: How online shopping has affected malls.   Podcast production by Jessamine Molli. Thanks Avast.com! Learn more about Avast One at Avast.com If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get benefits like zero ads on any Slate podcast, bonus episodes of shows like Slow Burn and Dear Prudence—and you'll be supporting the work we do here on Slate Money. Sign up now at slate.com/moneyplus to help support our work. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, Felix Salmon, Emily Peck, and Elizabeth Spiers are joined by design critic Alexandra Lange to talk about her book Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall on the evolution of shopping malls in America. In the Plus segment: How online shopping has affected malls.   Podcast production by Jessamine Molli. Thanks Avast.com! Learn more about Avast One at Avast.com If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get benefits like zero ads on any Slate podcast, bonus episodes of shows like Slow Burn and Dear Prudence—and you'll be supporting the work we do here on Slate Money. Sign up now at slate.com/moneyplus to help support our work. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, Felix Salmon, Emily Peck, and Elizabeth Spiers are joined by design critic Alexandra Lange to talk about her book Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall on the evolution of shopping malls in America. In the Plus segment: How online shopping has affected malls.   Podcast production by Jessamine Molli. Thanks Avast.com! Learn more about Avast One at Avast.com If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get benefits like zero ads on any Slate podcast, bonus episodes of shows like Slow Burn and Dear Prudence—and you'll be supporting the work we do here on Slate Money. Sign up now at slate.com/moneyplus to help support our work. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Grab your velcro wallet, throw on that Benneton rugby and lace up those Sperrys. We are heading back to the mall with an all new introduction to one of our most popular episodes to date, “Orange Julius Wishes & Karmelkorn Dreams.” Other than the roller rink, was there a better place to hang out during our GenX childhoods than the mall in the 1970s and 1980s? Join us for our fun conversation all about our MALL MEMORIES! From Orange Julius (just WHAT is in that, really?) to Spencer's Gifts (so terrifyingly naughty!) to the T-Shirt Shack (inhaaaale), to the coveted job at the mall movie theater — we cover it all, as well as share some great mall stories from our society members! C'mon, everybody! Let's go to the mall!Links to the people, places and things we talk about in this episode.99% Invisible podcast episode “Meet Us by the Fountain”“Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall” by Alexandra Lange. Purchase at Barnes and Nobel or Bookshop.org“The Mall” a novel by Megan McCafferty. Purchase at Barnes and Noble or Bookshop.orgFollow us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and TikTokSupport the PCPS by becoming a patron on Patreon. Check out all of the extra perks you'll get here.For a weekly dose of fun from the PCPS subscribe to The Weekly Reader here.

“The mall is personal,” writes design critic Alexandra Lange in her latest book “Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall.” For denizens of the suburbs, the mall is the place where people got their first jobs, got their first taste of independence goofing around with middle school friends, or bought their first hot dog on a stick. And while often derided by design critics, the mall in its heyday has been immortalized in movies like “Fast Times at Ridgemont High,” “Clueless,” “Mean Girls,” and more recently “Stranger Things.” With the rise in the online economy, many have heralded the demise of these temples of commerce but malls continue to reinvent themselves. We'll talk about the cultural and design history of malls and hear from you about your favorite mall memory. Guests: Alexandra Lange, author, “Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall”; design critic; columnist, Bloomberg CityLab

Architecture critic and author, Alexandra Lange joins us today to talk about her latest book, Meet Me By The Fountain: An Inside History Of The Mall. As it's title suggests, Meet Me By The Fountain explores the beginnings and development of the American shopping mall, but rewards our nostalgic gaze with a fascinating look at the mall as architectural challenge and sociological phenomenon. As a response to the changing relationships to consumerism and urban space in the post-World War II period, the shopping mall soared in popularity for Americans in large part because it offered at once a space for consumerist escape and nearly complete environmental and social control. It shaped its won social culture, shot through with all of the prejudices of the world outside but with the promise of experiential transformation. In Meet Me By The Fountain, the shopping mall emerges as a uniquely postmodern public space grounded in the perennial human longing for social connection, and the nostalgia we feel for that space in the present demonstrates its ongoing appeal, even in the present when it is considered to be, if not dead, dying an all-but certain death. Also, Elvia Wilk, author of the essay collection Death By Landscape, returns to recommend both Marlen Haushofer's 1963 novel The Wall (German: Die Wand) and Ned Beauman's new novel Venomous Lumpsucker.

This week we're joined by architecture writer and journalist Alexandra Lange to talk about her book: Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall. We chat about the evolution of the mall, equity and legal implications, and of course pop culture.   Follow us on twitter @theoverheadwire Support the show on Patreon http://patreon.com/theoverheadwire Buy books on our Bookshop.org Affiliate site! 

(While we work on the next season of Slow Burn we're showcasing Slate's other narrative podcasts, starting with a new season of Decoder Ring.) What do we lose if we lose the mall? 70 years into their existence, these hulking temples to commerce are surprisingly resilient and filled with contradictions. In this episode, Alexandra Lange, the author of the new book Meet Me at the Fountain: an Inside History of the Mall walks us through the atriums, escalators, and food courts of this singular suburban space. We also hear from mall-goers whose personal experiences help us make sense of this disdained yet beloved, disappearing yet surviving place. This episode of Decoder Ring was written by Willa Paskin and produced by Willa Paskin and Katie Shepherd. Derek John is Sr. Supervising Producer of Narrative Podcasts. Merritt Jacob is our Technical Director. If you have any cultural mysteries you want us to decode, email us at DecoderRing@slate.com If you love the show and want to support us, consider joining Slate Plus. With Slate Plus you get ad-free podcasts, bonus episodes, and total access to all of Slate's journalism. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What do we lose if we lose the mall? 70 years into their existence, these hulking temples to commerce are surprisingly resilient and filled with contradictions. In this episode, Alexandra Lange, the author of the new book Meet Me at the Fountain: an Inside History of the Mall walks us through the atriums, escalators, and food courts of this singular suburban space. We also hear from mall-goers whose personal experiences help us make sense of this disdained yet beloved, disappearing yet surviving place. This episode of Decoder Ring was written by Willa Paskin and produced by Willa Paskin and Katie Shepherd. Derek John is Sr. Supervising Producer of Narrative Podcasts. Merritt Jacob is our Technical Director. If you have any cultural mysteries you want us to decode, email us at DecoderRing@slate.com If you love the show and want to support us, consider joining Slate Plus. With Slate Plus you get ad-free podcasts, bonus episodes, and total access to all of Slate's journalism. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What do we lose if we lose the mall? 70 years into their existence, these hulking temples to commerce are surprisingly resilient and filled with contradictions. In this episode, Alexandra Lange, the author of the new book Meet Me at the Fountain: an Inside History of the Mall walks us through the atriums, escalators, and food courts of this singular suburban space. We also hear from mall-goers whose personal experiences help us make sense of this disdained yet beloved, disappearing yet surviving place. This episode of Decoder Ring was written by Willa Paskin and produced by Willa Paskin and Katie Shepherd. Derek John is Sr. Supervising Producer of Narrative Podcasts. Merritt Jacob is our Technical Director. If you have any cultural mysteries you want us to decode, email us at DecoderRing@slate.com If you love the show and want to support us, consider joining Slate Plus. With Slate Plus you get ad-free podcasts, bonus episodes, and total access to all of Slate's journalism. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You have likely heard people say that having a dog is good for you. Usually, dog lovers say that. So exactly how good is good? Do dogs really improve your health and well-being? This episode begins with an explanation. https://www.akc.org/expert-advice/lifestyle/10-science-based-benefits-dog/ Shopping malls are an American institution. For decades they have been popular places to shop, eat, go to the movies and just hang out. But are their days numbered? Is the shopping mall a dinosaur today due to online shopping and changes in the makeup of America? Listen as I discuss the past, present and future of the shopping mall with Alexandra Lange an architecture critic and author of the book Meet Me By The Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall (https://amzn.to/3cyzahi). Listen to what she has to say and you won't look at your neighborhood mall in quite the same way. When there is a problem, we tend to add something to try to fix it. If there is trouble at work, we add a new rule. If there is a problem we need to solve, we look for new ideas. When we're sick we want more medicine. Yet maybe it would be better to try to take obstacles away rather than add new rules and ideas – at least sometimes. That's the case Leidy Klotz makes. Leidy is a professor of engineering and architecture at the University of Virginia and author of the book Subtract: The Untapped Science of Less (https://amzn.to/3olHXG5).   If you are one of those people who has trouble cutting back on sugar, maybe a pickle could help. Listen as I explain how this works. http://www.wisegeek.com/why-do-some-pregnant-women-crave-pickles-and-ice-cream.htm PLEASE SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS! We really like The Jordan Harbinger Show! Check out https://jordanharbinger.com/start OR search for it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen!  Get $100 off of your first month with Talkspace! To match with a licensed therapist today, go to https://Talkspace.com & make sure to use the code SYSK to get $100 off of your first month! Go to https://Shopify.com/sysk for a FREE fourteen-day trial and get full access to Shopify's entire suite of features! Redeem your rewards for cash in any amount, at any time, with Discover Card! Learn more at https://Discover.com/RedeemRewards https://www.geico.com Bundle your policies and save! It's Geico easy! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Alexandra Lange, architecture critic and the author of Meet Me By the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2022), looks at the history of the shopping mall as a guide for transforming them for the future.

Like many American cities, Denver and its adjoining suburbs have had moments defined by malls. From Cinderella City to Villa Italia, Buckingham Square to Westminster, malls have come and gone, but created indelible memories for many Denverites. These intergenerational spaces played host to first jobs, first dates, and for many teens, first parent-free experiences in the public realm. Today on the show, host Bree Davies talks with author and architecture critic Alexandra Lange about her new book, Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall. Together, they trace the architectural and social history of Denver through the lens of a built environment meant for shopping — but remembered for so much more. Bree and Alexandra talked about beautiful images of dying malls — like these photos from Seph Lawless. (Pssst… today's blooper comes courtesy of these amazing in-store tapes from KMart that someone kindly posted to the Interwebz. Also, Bree recommends the album Vacant Places by Hantasi if you really want to immerse yourself in the mall's aural aesthetic.) Want more Denver metro mall history? Read and subscribe to the City Cast Denver newsletter: https://denver.citycast.fm/newsletter/ Shout out your fave Denver metro mall of yore on Twitter: @citycastdenver Leave us a voicemail with your name and neighborhood, and you might hear it on the show: (720) 500-5418‬ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Man from the Future: The Visionary Life of John von Neumann by Ananyo Bhattacharya. Trust by Hernan Diaz. City on Fire by Don Winslow. Sentence: Ten Years and a Thousand Books in Prison by Daniel Genis. The Newspaper Axis: Six Press Barons Who Enabled Hitler by Kathryn S. Olmsted. Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall by Alexandra Lange. The Library: A Fragile History by Andrew Pettegree, Arthur der Weduwen. Play with GPT-3 yourself here. Finding out whether GPT-3 can take the SAT. VidCon Returns as Chill Falls on Creator Economy. Elon Musk said he wants Twitter to become the WeChat of the western world in his first meeting with employees. When Elon met Twitter. Introducing: Notes We're testing a way to write longer on Twitter. SpaceX employees say Elon Musk is an 'embarrassment' as he waffles on work-from-home. Microsoft, Meta, and others are founding a metaverse open standards group (no Apple or Roblox). 'Snow Crash' Author Neal Stephenson Is Building a 'Free Metaverse' Called Lamina1. Meta is launching a digital clothing store where you can purchase outfits for your avatar. How Thom Browne became 2022's hottest red carpet commodity. Leaked Amazon memo warns the company is running out of people to hire. Amazon drones are coming to town. Some locals want to shoot them. NPR & Edison Research: Smart Speaker Ownership Reaches 35% of Americans. Leo's day with his voice assistant. Here Comes the Sun—to End Civilization. Rupert Murdoch and Jerry Hall Are Said to Be Divorcing. Bill Nye the Married Guy! "Science Guy" star tied the knot last month. Researcher Hacks Into Backend for Network of Smart Jacuzzis. Leaded aviation gasoline is poisoning a new generation. Most popular websites for news in the world: Monthly top 50 listing. Proof By Seth Abramson. SpaceX: Starlink Risks Becoming 'Unusable' If Dish Gets 12GHz Spectrum. Google News (now 20 years old) gets a redesign. Google Password Manager now has an Android home screen shortcut. Chrome 103 replaces the built-in password list with Android's default manager. Google Password Manager starts offering on-device encryption on Android, iOS, and Chrome. Google TV Profiles have arrived, and will allow each user to have their own personalized experience. Google Maps dark mode appears broken on Android Auto for some after recent updates. Why America Will Lose Semiconductors. Picks: Stacey - KitchenAid Shave Ice Attachment Jeff - TikTok Italian sandwich guy Ant - Pro Mist Filter from Tiffen Ant - Moment's Cine Bloom Filter Ant - New Updates to Premiere Pro Ant - Capture One Update Hosts: Leo Laporte, Jeff Jarvis, Stacey Higginbotham, and Ant Pruitt Download or subscribe to this show at https://twit.tv/shows/this-week-in-google. Get episodes ad-free with Club TWiT at https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: newrelic.com/twig policygenius.com/twig Blueland.com/TWIG

Alexandra Lange is a design critic whose work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, and many other publications. Her new book is Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall. “I really like to write about things that I can hold and experience. I'm not that interested in biography, but I am very interested in the biography of an object. ... Like I feel about the objects, I think, how most people feel about people. So what I'm always trying to do is communicate that enthusiasm and that understanding to my reader, because these objects really have a lot of speaking to do.” Show notes: @LangeAlexandra alexandralange.net  Lange on Longform 00:00 Lange's Design Observer archive 00:00 Lange's Curbed archive 00:00 Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall (Bloomsbury • 2022) 15:00 "Malls and the Future of American Retail" (Curbed • Feb 2018) 17:00 "Owings Mills Mall in 1986" (YouTube) 21:00 Lange's New York Magazine archive 21:00 Lange's Tumblr 26:00 Witold Rybczynski's Architect Magazine archive 30:00 The Design of Childhood: How the Material World Shapes Independent Kids (Bloomsbury • 2018) 35:00 New Angle: Voice (Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Elisabeth Egan, an editor at the Book Review, curates our Group Text column — a monthly choice of a book that she feels is particularly well suited to book clubs and their discussions. On this week's podcast, she talks about her latest pick: “Jackie & Me,” by Louis Bayard, which imagines the friendship between Jacqueline Bouvier and Lem Billings, a close friend of the Kennedys.“This is rooted in reality,” Egan says, “but Bayard runs with it and imagines conversations between Lem and Jackie, and just shows this, on one hand, fabulous life of parties and museums and fun they had together, but also sets up this ticking clock where you come to understand what Jackie really has at stake, and has to lose by committing to this life with the Kennedys.”Matthew Schneier visits the podcast to discuss Paula Byrne's new biography, “The Adventures of Miss Barbara Pym.” Pym, a British writer, began publishing novels in the 1950s.“She published six novels in pretty quick succession, and they're great,” Schneier says of the first decade or so of her career. “Very clever, very witty, she was often compared to Jane Austen — which was a writer that she loved and appreciated, but also a kind of very easy comparison, whereas Pym's ironies can be a little bit darker than some of Austen's. And there's a sense in her work that she is spotlighting characters who are not the Emma Woodhouses, who are beautiful and rich and effervescent. They're what she ended up calling ‘excellent women,' which is the title of I think her best starter novel. These women who are well brought up and very proper, a little bit pious, but can also be a little dowdy, a little dreary, a little bit easier to overlook.”Also on this week's episode, Alexandra Alter talks about the filmmaker Werner Herzog and his first novel, “The Twilight World”; and Jennifer Szalai and Molly Young talk about books they've recently reviewed. John Williams is the host.Here are the books discussed by The Times's critics this week:“The Facemaker” by Lindsey Fitzharris“Meet Me by the Fountain” by Alexandra Lange

No teenager in America in the 1980s could avoid the gravitational pull of the mall, not even author Alexandra Lange. In her new book, Meet Me by the Fountain, Lange writes about how malls were conceptually born out of a lack of space for people to convene in American suburbs. Despite the fact indoor shopping malls are no longer in their heyday, malls have not gone away completely. Lange writes about the history of mall culture, and how the mall became a ubiquitous part of American life.Meet Us by the Fountain

This week, the panel begins by discussing the new true crime series Under the Banner of Heaven. Then, the panel time travels with the film Petite Maman. Finally, the panel debates “The Future of Public Parks,” inspired by a New Yorker piece from Alexandra Lange. In Slate Plus, the panel discusses their experiences having their work edited. Email us at culturefest@slate.com. Endorsements Dan: The novel, Howards End by E.M. Forster. Julia: A listener response to her former request of snorkeling's relationship to birdwatching. Steve: A book review in The New Statesman from Scotland's National Poet, Kathleen Jamie, titled “What rocks teach us about the human condition,” which reviews Hugh Raffles' book The Book of Unconformities: Speculations on Lost Time. Podcast production by Cameron Drews. Production assistance by Nadira Goffe. Outro music is "Last Sunday" by OTE. Slate Plus members get ad-free podcasts, a bonus segment in each episode of the Culture Gabfest, full access to Slate's journalism on Slate.com, and more. Sign up now at slate.com/cultureplus. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, the panel begins by discussing the new true crime series Under the Banner of Heaven. Then, the panel time travels with the film Petite Maman. Finally, the panel debates “The Future of Public Parks,” inspired by a New Yorker piece from Alexandra Lange. In Slate Plus, the panel discusses their experiences having their work edited. Email us at culturefest@slate.com. Endorsements Dan: The novel, Howards End by E.M. Forster. Julia: A listener response to her former request of snorkeling's relationship to birdwatching. Steve: A book review in The New Statesman from Scotland's National Poet, Kathleen Jamie, titled “What rocks teach us about the human condition,” which reviews Hugh Raffles' book The Book of Unconformities: Speculations on Lost Time. Podcast production by Cameron Drews. Production assistance by Nadira Goffe. Outro music is "Last Sunday" by OTE. Slate Plus members get ad-free podcasts, a bonus segment in each episode of the Culture Gabfest, full access to Slate's journalism on Slate.com, and more. Sign up now at slate.com/cultureplus. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices