Travel • Living • Design
The train from Breda was not what we had planned. Belgium, it turned out, was more than we had anticipated either — a small country with two languages, two cultures, and a particular dry humor about holding both together. A week based in Brussels, moving outward by rail into Flanders and Wallonia.
On a Thursday morning we stopped at Boulangerie Michel on a quiet street in Den Haag, sat down with croissants and café at the owner's…
The flat was on the Prinsengracht, third floor, its windows facing directly out over the canal. We arrived midday Friday, pulled the suitcases up the…
Continue reading → Amsterdam: Designed for What It Couldn’t Stop
As I poked between the iron gate, I heard a voice warn: "No photos." I looked up to see a gentleman emerge from the estate's…
Continue reading → London: Kensington and the Architecture of Privilege
As the 2018 FIFA World Cup quarterfinals played out, of the teams that progressed — England, France, Belgium, Croatia — we were packing for a…
Continue reading → Northwestern Europe: Football, Four Countries, Carry-On Only
There are places designed for ordinary use — and then there are places designed for a particular kind of moment. The National Mall is the…
Continue reading → Washington, January 2009: On Being Present for History
A walled Maya port city on a Caribbean cliff — read structure by structure, through a spatial designer's eye. Tulum rewards the visitor who moves slowly.
What felt like a week was only three days. Istanbul does that — compresses time and expands it simultaneously, leaving you certain you have barely…
Continue reading → Istanbul: Two Continents, Three Days, One Rug
The first morning in Paris, jet lag woke us at four. Rather than lie there fighting it, we dressed in the dark and took the…