One primary lesson from the design studio comes hard for the diligent: The best plans do not always follow the rules.

Outsiders say that architects spend too much energy giving each other prizes, but when Glenn Murcutt won the Pritzker Architecture Prize this year, you could almost hear the cheers.

If you didn’t know better, to talk to some architects you might think that idealism had vanished from the architectural scene.

Last month Architectural Record visited Tadao Ando, Hon. FAIA, in his office in Osaka, Japan, and talked with him about the nature of architecture and creativity, and his view of architecture within a changing global landscape.

Passions and confusion hover over the former World Trade Center site like lingering smoke.

Think of where you feel most secure. Lying fully prone on a warm beach or snuggled in your own bed?

In the 20th century, urban observers like Jane Jacobs praised the interactive sensory and social experiences that lie on any good block in Greenwich Village or Back Bay Boston.

On the occasion of the 2001 Aga Khan Award for Architecture, Robert Ivy talked with His Highness the Aga Khan about the architectural, social, and environmental issues facing Islam today.

When Sam Mockbee died, somewhere down South a tree fell—big as an oak, a 57-year marvel in its own place, it drew sustenance from generations of loam and deep water, weathered storms and bent and grew broad, threw off shade and color for all that came and sat beneath it, sheltered all comers, an elemental force that rained out new growth, and, on December 30, returned to its own soil.

Nicholas Grimshaw’s Eden Project in Cornwall, England, featured on this month’s cover, both startles and instructs.