Herbert Muschamp: rise and fall

Herbert Muschamp, The New York Times’ architecture critic, is stepping down from his post much as he attained it: surrounded by applause. Twelve years ago, he was called the country’s next great critic; today, his army of detractors is all too happy to see him leave.

The official line at the paper is that the 56-year-old Mr. Muschamp "wants to explore other options," which may include serving as a "global culture" columnist and writing for the Styles section and the Magazine.

If the transition is self-motivated, it’s also, sources at The Times said, a relief to a new crop of editors unwilling to defend, as their predecessors did, the critic’s iconoclasm and obscurantism, his unapologetic dilettantism and his unabashed socializing within the highest social circles of the creative world he judges in print. It’s a fall from grace that represents the kind of Times-writer morality tale alumni of the paper know all too well. At the height of his career, Mr. Muschamp’s writing was the talk of the New York cultural scene; today, his professional conflicts of interest and very public breakdowns have pushed him to the margins of architectural society. Mr. Muschamp declined to be interviewed for this article, but a source close to him said that he has decided that he had said all he had to say about architecture.

Posted by David on July 1, 2004 10:09 AM