Last month, the world of architecture lost the best critic of our time. Ada Louise Huxtable set the standard for architectural journalism, not only because of her many firsts–first architecture critic for the New York Times, hired in 1963; first cultural critic to win the Pulitzer Prize, in 1970–but because of the powerful influence of her voice, both on the public and on writers who followed her. The digging and research that informed her opinions is legendary: her articles were built on deep layers of knowledge about design, engineering, history, zoning laws, financing, real-estate deals, politics, and, most important, what she saw as the social contract at the heart of most building ventures. To be with Ada Louise (never Ada!) was like reading one of her essays–she was elegant, erudite, sophisticated, fearless, tough, and witty. Through her articles in the Times, and later in the Wall Street Journal, she taught generations of readers how to look at architecture and understand the urban realm.

While we were preparing this issue of RECORD on renovation, addition, and adaptive reuse, we couldn't help but think about Huxtable. A modernist by inclination, she championed the work of a wide range of architects–James Stirling, I.M. Pei, Frank Gehry. But she was often a fierce preservationist, and believed that the history revealed through a variety of buildings and public spaces–shifting, aging, and adapted over time–was essential to the vibrant texture of cities. “I am devoted to the principle that every age produces its greatest buildings in its own image,” she wrote. “Ultimately, it is the addition and absorption of this continuous record of changing art, technology, ideas, and uses that make cities the unique repositories of the whole range of human endeavor.”