File Under Architecture

Herbert Muschamp, who eventually became the architecture critic for the New York Times between 1992 and 2004, was only 27 years old when he wrote this quirky manifesto. Printed on craft paper and bundled like a small parcel between two corrugated cardboard covers, it weighs only nine ounces, no heavier than a couple of twigs. Since 1975, when I bought it, the book got even drier and lighter, as the wood fibers in the paper pulp lost all their humidity. Today, the little volume resonates like a sound box. Instinctively, you drum your fingers on its cover. You riffle through its pages to hear them flutter. You hold its spine cradled in the palm of your hand as if it were the bow of a musical instrument.

The sensuality of the book is reinforced by its design. The text is set in a friendly typewriter font, the lines are generously leaded, and the columns are just the right width. Short notes in the margins, printed in rich chocolate brown, provide a welcome distraction. The layout is so unassuming and legible it soothes your eyeballs—which is a good thing, considering the audacious, contentious, and insolent nature of Mr. Muschamp’s prose.

An iconoclast, the author of File Under Architecture intended to deliver a series of scathing comments on modern architects, their arrogance and posturing. His tirades would have been wearisome if they weren’t studded with gems like “In the morning, all of Rome smells of coffee, which isn’t something that was cleverly planned,” or “New York is a cultural capital not because the best artists live there, but because the quickest critics do.”

Muschamp was the quickest of them all, the first and the most fearless when it came to debunking the hypocrisy of the architecture establishment. Toward the end of his tenure at the Times, people at dinner parties in Manhattan loved to trash his brilliant reviews. While defending him, I got into a number of ugly fights with individuals whose taste I otherwise held in high regard.

File Under Architecture revealed Muschamp’s uncanny ability to package his thoughts in a manner both seductive and provocative. As an object, the book is hard to put down. You want to caress it, pat it, fondle it. While its content might challenge your ability to sit still, its visual appeal will lull you into a gentle daze. You’ll read on, skipping paragraphs here and there yet unable to interrupt the movement of your eyes as they skim over the surface of the soft brown pages.