The economic downturn is having a welcome effect on the “poisonous cocktail of vanity and self-delusion” that has been contemporary architecture, particularly in New York City, says Nicolai Ourossoff in the New York Times:

Read it HERE

Karl Lagerfeld and architect Zaha Hadid in the Mobile Art container, built to exhibit 20 artists’ tributes to the 50th anniversary of Coco Chanel’s launch of the black, quilt-stitched 2.55 bag with the gold chain. Image: vanityfair.com/Todd Eberle.

And Holland Kotter, also writing in the Times, notes that “the last crash opened the art world’s tightly guarded gates to a wave of upstart talent and radical new ways of thinking. That was great. It could happen again.”

Read more on his notable events from 2008 HERE.