New City Critics
Overview
New City Critics is a fellowship program that empowers new, fearless, and diverse voices to challenge the ways we understand, design, and build our cities. A partnership between Urban Design Forum and The Architectural League, the fellowship supports the development of critics from underrepresented backgrounds through guest lectures and workshops, research guidance, networking, and the production of new writing on a dedicated platform on Urban Omnibus. Through published work and other channels, the fellowship encourages a more expansive conversation on the future of cities.
New City Critics aims to expand who writes about cities and shapes our public imagination. As legacy media shrinks and full-time critics disappear, there are fewer accessible, compelling stories interrogating how cities are made – and for whom. A small circle of voices dominates the existing conversation, with attention to limited topics and a narrow vision of what cities can be. We believe that to build better cities, we need a richer, more representative culture of criticism – one that expands who participates, what stories get told, and how we talk about design, power, and place.
New City Critics aims to develop critical writing on urban design, development, and daily life that reflects the people who live in cities. We need more informed and sustained examination of citymaking in media beyond small professional circles and engaging varied publics. Housing, workplaces, infrastructure, public spaces, and monuments define the contours of our lives. They demand critical attention and a critical imagination expressed through new formats and forums. Our goal is to equip a new generation of critics with essential skills and a meaningful network to make urban processes legible and argue for the city they want to live in.
2024-25 Fellows
Meet the 2024-2025 New City Critics Fellows
Join Our Next Cohort
Applications are now open for our new cycle of New City Critics.
The fellowship empowers new, fearless and diverse voices to challenge the ways we understand, design and build our cities. We aim to build a cohort of six individuals who will lean on each other’s curiosities and grow together. Learn more at our info session on May 28 and apply by June 12. Link in bio.
Learn More and ApplyFAQs
Learn more about the application and selection process, the program structure and frequently asked questions.
FAQsEvents
05.21.25
Join Urban Design Forum, the Architectural League, and Urban Omnibus for a private screening of Out of the Picture, a new documentary film exploring the lives and work of art critics through a historic time of cultural reckoning.
06.17.25
Join the Forum and The Architectural League for the launch of a new publication and conversation with this year’s New City Critics.
10.30.23
Join us to celebrate the inaugural New City Critics cohort in a conversation on the future of urban criticism.
06.28.23
What is the role of the critic and critical writing in shaping public conversation about the built environment?
01.25.23
Join us on 1/25 for a conversation about the state of criticism on New York City’s built environment.
02.28.22
On February 28, candidates interested in the New City Critics Fellowship are welcome to attend an information session to learn more about the program.
Past Cycles
Cycle 1: 2022-23
In the program’s first 18 months, six emerging critics took on conversations about race, place, capitalism and belonging, in criticism, urbanism and New York City.
Fellows published new writing in Urban Omnibus that shows how community banks help sustain New York City neighborhoods, speaks with Black Haitian urbanists about navigating multiple identities, and explores the voids storms and plans have left behind in the Rockaways.
2022-23 – New City CriticsAdvisory Board
Garnette Cadogan is the Tunney Lee Distinguished Lecturer in Urbanism at the School of Architecture and Planning at MIT.
Dario Calmese made history as the first Black photographer to shoot a cover for Vanity Fair with his portrait of Viola Davis. He hosts the radio series The Institute of Black Imagination.
Sukjong Hong is the editor of Curbed and was previously managing editor and web editor at the Architect’s Newspaper and a reporter-researcher at the New Republic.
Alexandra Lange is a design critic. She is a columnist for Bloomberg CityLab, and has been a featured writer at Design Observer, an opinion columnist at Dezeen, and the architecture critic for Curbed.
Carolina A. Miranda is an independent writer covering art, architecture and urban design, along with various other facets of culture in Los Angeles.
Fellows will be selected by the program’s advisory board and program staff.
About Us
Urban Design Forum connects and inspires New Yorkers to design, build and care for a better city. We are a member-powered organization of 1,000+ civic leaders committed to a more just future for our city. We believe the built environment—our neighborhoods, buildings, public spaces and infrastructure—shapes our city’s health, culture and economy. We bring together New Yorkers of diverse backgrounds and experiences to learn, debate, and design a vibrant city for all.
The Architectural League of New York supports critically transformative work in the allied fields that shape the built environment. As a vital, independent forum, the League stimulates thinking, debate, and action on today’s converging crises of racism, inequity, and climate change, in service of a more livable and just world. The League’s online publication, Urban Omnibus, is dedicated to observing, understanding, and shaping the city. Urban Omnibus raises new questions, illuminates diverse perspectives, and documents creative projects to advance the collective work of citymaking.
Support
This year’s program would not be possible without the support of Critical Minded, Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, Joan Copjec, Paul Goldberger, Mark & Carol Willis, Nat Oppenheimer, Mary Margaret Jones and Siqi Zhu.
We are also grateful to the founding donors of the program: Critical Minded, Mark & Carol Willis, Charles H. Revson Foundation, Graham Foundation, Thom Mayne, Moshe Safdie, Joan Copjec, Paul Goldberger, Eric Owen Moss, Zach Mortice & Maria Speiser, Tami Hausman, Stella Betts, Mary Margaret Jones, Nat Oppenheimer, Deborah Berke, Zach Mortice, Calvin Tsao, Rosalie Genevro, Mario Gooden, Lyn Rice & Astrid Lipka, Karen Stein and Vincent Chang.
Urban Design Forum programs are made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.
To learn more about supporting New City Critics, please contact Daniel McPhee at daniel@urbandesignforum.org or donate here.
Acknowledgments
New City Critics was inspired by and learned from numerous organizations and programs helping to lift new voices and reshape the culture of criticism in architecture and urbanism and beyond. We are thankful for the generous conversations with Boston Review Black Writers Fellowship, Critical Minded, d.talks, The Eyebeam Center for the Future of Journalism, Firelight Media, The Laundromat Project Creative Change Fellowship, Next100, New Architecture Writers, Office Hours, The Studio Museum in Harlem and MoMA Joint Fellowship, SVA Design Research, and UnionDocs.
In Memory Of
This program is founded in honor of Michael Sorkin, a longstanding Board Member of the Urban Design Forum and Architectural League. His death in March 2020 was a huge loss to the world of thinking and action in architecture and the shaping of landscapes and cities. He was a spectacularly good writer, fearless and funny, and adept at exposing and explaining the systems of power that create the built environment. We hope to honor one of his most important legacies: his generosity and care in encouraging the development of young thinkers and writers and designers around the world.