How Architects Guide Cities Into Globalization

"''Tall Buildings,'' the new show at the temporary Long Island City headquarters of the Museum of Modern Art, is as much a travel expo as it is an architecture show. Featuring giant scale models, many of them glitzy, the presentation brilliantly simulates a grand tour of urban contemporaneity.

Technology; urbanism; and the building program, or set of uses: Mr. Riley cites these as the main themes embodied by the work on view. The urban dimension is by far the most important of the three. We assume that engineers can do wonderful things. Programming remains the prerogative of planners, for better or worse. But the story about the period in question concerns the increasing reliance on architects and architecture to guide cities into the era of globalization. That's the story we see illustrated here."

Thanks to Abhijeet Chavan