Year in review: 2023’s most read stories

In 2023, The Architectural Review published 10 issues dedicated to themes such as labour, museums, plants, demolition, property and deserts, as well as a special issue – our 1,500th – looking back at the magazine’s extensive archive to examine how architectural criticism had, or had not, covered and responded to the climate crisis. In many ways, our 1,500th issue theme continues to loom large, underpinning and reinforcing the AR’s editorial vision – a reminder to ourselves and others of the role we need architectural criticism to play in an industry inextricably tied to global heating. Dare point to the entanglements of architecture and fossil capitalism, as did AR deputy editor Eleanor Beaumont in her review of Norman Foster’s ‘futurespective’ at the Centre Pompidou this year, and the protestations are still depressingly swift.

We are buoyed, however, by the fact that the majority of our readers respond with urgency, care and curiosity to the topic. Along with Beaumont’s review, Joe Giddings’ keynote essay for our AR New into Old + Demolition issue (AR July/August 2023) – ‘Demolish nothing’ – is among our top read stories this year, as are revisits of pioneering experiments in sustainable building, such as Martha Dillon on Sarah Wigglesworth Architects’ Straw Bale House (AR June 2023) and Steve Webb and Paul Downie on ZEDfactory’s BedZED (AR April 2023). Our Plants issue (AR June 2023), which looked at ways in which people build with and for plant life around the world, makes up a considerable chunk of our most-read list, from Summer Islam’s keynote essay and Michael Burchert’s Outrage on fire regulations for bio-based materials to Aziza Abdulfetah and Yusuf Nazerali’s close reading of the plantings of a new park for Addis Ababa.

In our May issue, Dan Hicks asked whether museums are obsolete – a question that appears to have resonated with readers, as many western museum institutions grapple with overflowing collections and urgent calls for the restitution of objects. Rory Hyde visited Kerstin Thompson Architects’ Melbourne Holocaust Museum, reminding us of the crucial roles of documentation and memorialisation that museum collections – and their buildings – can play, while AR assistant editor Kristina Rapacki examined the ways in which museums are grappling with the storage of their ever-expanding collections. Macarena Poppe, meanwhile, asked what use an empty archaeological museum is for Peru – our most-read story of 2023.

As part of AR July/August 2023, we also launched the ‘demolition postcards’, a series of notes, in print and online, from architects, critics and curators around the world highlighting the buildings they wish were still here. Mimi Zeiger’s lamentation over the loss of William Pereira’s original Los Angeles County Museum of Art – and withering assessment of the scheme that will replace it – made it into coverage in the New York Times, as well as our most-read list. As to Oliver Wainwright’s defence of London’s Euston Station: ‘Who hasn’t delighted in the inverted pyramids that hang like little stalactites over the ticket hall, or the green marble that swirls underfoot?’ Well, quite a few of you, as it turns out.

1. The empty museum: Museo Nacional del Perú in Lima, Peru by Leon Marcial Arquitectos, AR May 2023, Macarena Poppe
‘In a country deserving of spaces for dialogue and healing, the opening of an empty museum – a process done backwards – may be the only way to move forward’

2. Demolish nothing: densifying the built environment through accretion, AR July/August 2023, Joe Giddings
‘Architects must take to the heart of the city with surgical precision, realising the accretive value of the existing built environment’

3. Euston Station: demolition postcard (1968–), AR July/August 2023, Oliver Wainwright
‘Who hasn’t delighted in the inverted pyramids that hang like little stalactites over the ticket hall, or the green marble that swirls underfoot?’

4. Are museums obsolete?, AR May 2023, Dan Hicks
‘The point about restitution is that it is not about turning the clock back or undoing or absolving past wrongs, but about what can happen next’

5. Together we build: organising architectural labour, AR February 2023, Jess Myers
‘The stories architects tell about labour and practice shape the bounds of what is possible to demand’

6. Commit to memory: Melbourne Holocaust Museum in Melbourne, Australia by Kerstin Thompson Architects, AR May 2023, Rory Hyde
‘This is a space in which to be confronted by awful truths, while also allowing space for your own emotional response’

7. Lay of the landscape: The Meles Zenawi Memorial Park in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia by Studio Other Spaces, Fasil Giorghis and Vogt Landscape Architects, AR June 2023, Aziza Abdulfetah and Yusuf Nazerali
‘The park’s planting design stems from the Re‑Greening Addis campaign, which was part of a national agenda; since 2010, Ethiopia has made efforts to reduce its emissions of greenhouse gases by half’

8. Reputations: Carlo Scarpa (1906–1978), AR May 2023, Orietta Lanzarini
‘Scarpa transformed 19th-century museums into musées vivants: familiar places that are flooded with natural light and welcome all visitors’

9. The public housing paradox in Singapore, AR September 2023, Calvin Chua
‘A general narrative around asset appreciation quickly formed and, along with it, an expectation that housing prices would continue to rise’

10. Reputations: Kazuyo Seijima (1956–), AR March 2023, Ken Tadashi Oshima
‘In their plans, elevations and models, Sejima’s projects present a deceptively simple geometric clarity’

11. Outrage: fire regulations are no excuse, AR June 2023, Michael Burchert
‘The global construction industry exploits a widely held belief that traditional masonry and reinforced-concrete buildings are safer – but they can in fact be very unsafe in the event of a fire’

12. Back to the future: Norman Foster at the Centre Pompidou, AR May 2023, Eleanor Beaumont
‘Despite Foster’s insistence that this “is not a Retrospective but, rather, a Futurespective”, proposals for a post-carbon future are noticeably thin on the ground, while relics of fossil capitalism abound’

13. Revisit: BedZED in Beddington, UK by ZEDfactory, AR April 2023, Steve Webb and Paul Downie
‘The minute someone so much as turns the key in the ignition of a digger, building projects stop being zero energy’

14. Architecture criticism against the climate clock, AR April 2023, Jeremy Till
‘The masking of the real crisis, and the ignoring of the intersection of climate justice with social justice, continues today’

15. Planting a seed: bio-based building, AR June 2023, Summer Islam
‘In the modern construction industry, materials which have proven their efficacy over decades are considered risky, fringe and ultimately more costly’

16. Los Angeles County Museum of Art (1965–2020): demolition postcard, AR July/August 2023, Mimi Zeiger
‘Maybe demolition would not have been so wretched if the replacement by Zumthor didn’t seem so wrong‑headed’

17. Out of storage: the architecture of the museum depot, AR May 2023, Kristina Rapacki
‘The Met displays around five per cent of its collection; the British Museum only one per cent’

18. Revisit: Straw Bale House in London, UK by Sarah Wigglesworth Architects, AR June 2023, Martha Dillon
‘It might be more difficult to build and insure a bio‑based building today than it was in 2000’ 

19. Retrospective: Khammash Architects, AR October 2023, Ali Karimi
‘The local stone had to be light enough to be carried by one or two workers, avoiding forklifts, cranes or heavy machinery’

20. Pillars of society: building Mexico City’s community centres, AR February 2023, Tania Tovar Torres
‘With carefully designed centres completed on time and on budget, no one seemed to notice the system of precarious labour that the architects were subscribing to’