Aggression is a particle, desire is a wave.” Thus Herbert Muschamp, the architecture critic for The New York Times, characterizes countervailing forces in the universal ether, metaphors that once again plunge us into this critic’s seductive worldview. Week after week, architects and the cognoscenti read the Times’ architectural criticism—caught up in its language, prejudices, quirks, variable points of view, sometimes brilliant fireworks across the cultural spectrum—responding to a voice that reverberates from coast to coast.

Although the role of architecture critic at the Times may seem inevitable, the position is a recent one. Ada Louise Huxtable introduced regular architectural criticism to the pages of the paper in 1963, winning respect both for the publication and for urban planning and architecture, while earning a Pulitzer Prize—an honor also garnered by her replacement, Paul Goldberger. Forty years later, the approaching anniversary of Huxtable’s contribution prompts us to examine what the paper has accomplished for the field.