David Dillon, architecture critic for The Dallas Morning News for 25 years and longtime contributing editor of this publication, died unexpectedly on June 3. His passing marked a sea change for many of us in architectural journalism, forcing us to reflect on the current state of the craft and how it has inalterably shifted with the rise of the blogosphere. Dillon — who graduated from Boston College and held a master’s in literature and a Ph.D. in art history from Harvard — forged a deep relationship with his adopted subject, the city of Dallas, offering not a superficial review of its buildings, as too often occurs online, but a polychromatic view of its entire urban development, for good or ill. Erudite but piercingly clear, as good journalists can be, he personified how authentic criticism speaks most convincingly from local knowledge. The following are his words, excerpted from a speech he presented in August 2008 to the Council of Architectural Component Executives in Richmond, Virginia.

“… [There is] a huge vacuum in serious design commentary, in which architecture, the most public of the arts, is losing touch with its public — its customer base, if you like — and has less and less influence on how our communities are planned and designed.