Longtime New York Times architecture critic Herbert Muschamp has passed away at the age of 59. A memo to the paper's staff from Bill Keller and Sam Sifton was just released.

Herbert Muschamp gossip?

NYT architecture critic Herbert Muschamp's distate for the Libeskind plan doesn't seem to be affecting official opinion. Mayor Mike and Governor Pataki both favor Libeskind, albeit not strongly, and Port Authority officials appear to be leaning the same way. Maybe the Anti-Muschamp letter writing campaign worked.
Support builds for one plan for trade center site [NYT]

The editors of the Architectural Record and Metropolis believe architecture critic Herbert Muschamp's article slamming the Libeskind plan for the WTC wasn't even-handed. Muschamp's response: "I like conflict...I made my views on this very clear: One of the reasons it s great to write about architecture is that it promotes conflict."
Libeskind acolytes barrage the Times attacking Muschamp [Observer]

Archlog has a copy of the anti-Herbert Muschamp letter that came from Daniel Libeskind's Berlin office last week after Muschamp wrote a column favoring the THINK design. An excerpt: "Yesterday's article by Muschamp is over the top. He is just not reliable anymore. Please get rid of this guy."
Libeskind letter [Archlog via Kottke]

Felix Salmon points out that Herbert Muschamp's vitriol for the Libeskind plan was noticeably absent in December. From Muschamp's December 19 article: "If you are looking for the marvelous, here's where you will find it. Daniel Libeskind's project attains a perfect balance between aggression and desire... Mr. Libeskind has fashioned a new set of crystals, brilliantly faceted skyscrapers, forms that recreate the aspiration many architects felt when plate glass was new."
Muschamp on Libeskind [MemeFirst]

The NYT's Herbert Muschamp needlessly dichotomizes the WTC constituencies into hawks and dovesthe Libeskind plan being the obvious work of warmongers, and THINK a pacifist creation. Muschamp, clearly pro-THINK, writes of Libeskind, "why, after all, should a large piece of Manhattan be permanently dedicated to an artistic representation of enemy assault? It is an astonishingly tasteless idea. It has produced a predictably kitsch result."
Balancing reason and emotion in Twin Towers void [NYT]

"A Latin Jolt to the New York Skyline: Say what you will about the new Westin Hotel in Times Square,...