Watching What's Next: Architectural Record's Cathleen McGuigan on Her Tenure, Evolution, and Mentorship
By Julia Gamolina
Cathleen McGuigan has been editor-in-chief of Architectural Record since May 2011. Under her leadership, Record has won numerous honors, including the Grand Neal award, the top American Business Media award for overall excellence. In 2021, she received the Architecture in Media award from the AIA New York chapter.
McGuigan, former architecture critic and arts editor of Newsweek, has a BA from Brown University and was awarded a Loeb Fellowship at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard. She has taught at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism and has been a Poynter Fellow at Yale. Besides Newsweek and Architectural Record, her articles have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Smithsonian, and Rolling Stone. She is a member of the board of trustees of the Skyscraper Museum.
In January, McGuigan is stepping down as editor of Record but will remain consulting editor. In her interview with Julia Gamolina, she talks about her focus during her time at Record and what’s next, advising those just starting their careers to find mentors across generations.
JG: Let’s start from the beginning – how did you come to journalism, and then eventually to architecture?
CM: I was an English major — as everyone knows, no one can get a job as an English major — and an Art History minor. But I always wrote and freelanced, mostly as an arts writer. I worked briefly in a museum, came to New York as an editor for an arts not-for-profit, and soon ended up getting a job at Newsweek, as a researcher and reporter for the art critic and it was a fantastic job. My very first assignment was interviewing Andy Warhol. I mean, it was fun.
I also kept freelancing and got a breakthrough assignment from the New York Times Magazine to write an article on a then-emerging young artist named Jean-Michel Basquiat. The story ended up on the cover.
Wow!
But I was always interested in cities, and I liked interviewing architects because they tend to be very good talkers. Architects have to explain their work in ways that artists don’t, and while I love the art world, I was really interested in public space and the social spaces of cities. I gradually began to cover more architecture for Newsweek and revived a beat that had been dormant.
“A simple thing we did was to change our language from talking about ‘climate change’ to using the term ‘climate crisis,’ because it is a crisis—and language matters.”
How did you eventually get to Record?
Record came to me, and I was very fortunate that they did. They were looking for a new editor-in-chief after Robert Ivy went to be the CEO of the AIA. In addition to my writing and criticism, I had spent a year at the Harvard GSD as a Loeb Fellow, so that helped because I was not trained as an architect as so many previous editors of Record had been. I had been promoted to arts editor at Newsweek too, and so had experience running a staff. I think both my background as a critic and as a manager led to my being hired at Record.
Your tenure here has been almost twelve years. Tell me how both the magazine, and you, evolved in that time.
I was asked at the beginning what I was planning to do with Record, and I said that I thought that there would be an evolution, but not a revolution. At the core, the magazine has always been about presenting the best possible contemporary design. I felt that was still the centerpiece of the magazine, and what our readers, who are primarily architects, want to see, is photography, details, and writing tailored to their knowledge and expertise.
But I was always interested in the broader public and social issues surrounding architecture. In that way — and Record had certainly done that kind of coverage before — we began to look more deeply at reporting on cities and urban issues. The urban context became very important to me: how a building affects the context and how the context affects the building, not just a work of architecture as an object. Then there are the broader social issues I’ve cared about and continued to bring to the magazine, such as lack of affordable housing, social inequities, how to improve the public realm, and pushing for diversity in the profession.
Of course, the big overarching issue, which has only grown more urgent, is sustainability and global warming. A simple thing we did was to change our language from talking about “climate change” to using the term “climate crisis,” because it is a crisis — and language matters. But I didn’t invent that — I got the idea from the editors of the Guardian in the UK who had done that, and I felt that that was correct. And we all have also shifted from thinking mainly about energy savings to now thinking about embodied carbon and emissions. We’ve become much more sophisticated in understanding the impact of that on building.
Cathleen at Record’s Innovation conference in New York in October with 2022 Pritzker laureate Francis Kéré. Courtesy of Kristen Blush.
Language does really matter, no matter how seemingly subtle. On this note, I’d love to hear you talk more about the coverage of women during your tenure, as well as the inception and evolution of the Women in Architecture awards that Record puts on.
As a journalist, I’m always looking for a story, and when a friend told me she was going to a Yale reunion of women alumni of the architecture school in the fall of 2012, I asked her to write something for us. This was clearly a big issue, since these women felt they had to come together and talk about what their challenges were.
After that, we pulled together a group of about ten architects who were all women, for dinner in New York. We learned, first of all, that women architects do not want to be called “women architects.” They just want to be called architects! We were trying to figure out how we could sensitively cover the issue of gender, as well as cover design, but not put women in a box or in a category. While we were working on that, in the winter of 2012-2013, the petition began to circulate to give Denise Scott Brown the Pritzker Prize, that had been denied her when the award had gone only to her partner Robert Venturi.
The petition got something like 20,000 signatures online, including from previous Pritzker Prize winners. At this point, we were already working on our issue for June 2013, which was the one we would take to the AIA convention that year. I always tried to do a special, serious topic for that issue in advance of the conference. The entire special issue included great architecture, all by women, and a lot of new reporting around women in the profession.
We found that there were very poor statistics about women in the field, and then one of our editorial interns had the wit to go to the U.S. Department of Labor. Their statistics department tracks fifty professions in which women depart at certain periods of their career. And the worst profession was architecture.
Wow. I knew it was bad, but I certainly didn’t think architecture was the worst offender.
The statistics showed a huge number of women leaving the field between the ages of 35 to 44, and I think you could see that as a period when women are starting families, or maybe caring for somebody. It was a real brain drain for the profession, to see that women were graduating from architecture school, starting as junior architects, getting their licenses, and then the profession not adapting to them. That was kind of shocking to uncover, and we promoted that.
After the issue came out, and we got a lot of attention and awards, I wanted to see how we could keep this issue in the spotlight. That’s when we decided we would launch the annual Women in Architecture awards, the only program of its kind in the country that focuses on women who are design leaders. Our ten-year anniversary will be next year, and I will still be running the program as consulting editor.
“For a journalist, the core mission is to tell the truth, get it right, and also bring nuance to what you do. Things aren’t always black and white. It’s wonderfully challenging to present projects, people, and ideas as concisely as possible, but also with room for interpretation.”
What are you looking forward to in this new step for you? What else will you do next?
Deciding to step down as editor-in-chief of Record was very difficult; this is just the best job in the world for somebody like me. But it is a super demanding job, needless to say, and I came to the conclusion that, while no time is exactly the right time, I did want another chapter in my life to focus more on my own writing, reporting, and advocacy for those things I care deeply about, like housing and the public realm. I’m very fortunate that I’ll stay connected to Record as consulting editor, but I’m also really looking forward to working on independent projects, both as a consultant and as a writer, possibly working on a book.
Wonderful! And I hope we’ll get to collaborate more.
Me too.
What would you say have been some of the biggest challenges for you?
I’ve been having such a wonderful career, but it is extremely hard work. I’ve been fortunate to have a family that’s been very supportive of my work. When I worked for a weekly news magazine, for example, we always closed on a Friday night, and for decades, I never had dinner with my family on a Friday night. My family just knew that this was the way it was.
There’s never enough time, space, or resources — especially now with digital media — to be able to publish everything that you want, to pursue every idea you have. You have to be selective, and sometimes that’s frustrating. I’d say that’s the main challenge — not enough time or space.
Cathleen with Record Women in Architecture Design Leader for 2022 Carol Ross Barney. Courtesy of Kristen Blush.
I certainly feel that. What have you learned in the last six months?
I’m really glad you asked that, because as we’ve all been coming out of the pandemic, one of the most profound aspects for me has been to realize how much I appreciate being together with people, and how much I see that all around me. I think being together is very important for architects — sharing what they think, and how they think about the shaping and retrofitting of space, and collaborating with clients and each other. People thought years ago that with the rise of the digital world, people would just want to be by themselves on their computers all the time — and even though the workplace is changing, I think we all see that that’s not true! Restaurants are crowded, streets are crowded, people are going back to the theaters and clubs…people want to be together!
We’ve seen in architecture the importance of creating spaces where people can gather – flexible spaces, unprogrammed spaces. That’s been growing in importance as we gain a greater understanding that people absolutely need community. It’s too hard for people to be alone all the time. And today, here at Record, we’re going to begin looking at covers for the next issue, and it’s much more fun to do it all together around the table than to do it on Zoom.
Who are you admiring right now?
I will never name names of favorite architects because that just gets you into trouble [laughs], but I will say that I’m always interested in what’s next. In architecture, there’s a real changing of the guard, and I’m really interested in young, emerging architects and their interests and concerns. I’m also really interested in architecture schools, where we’ve seen a real shift and where students are demanding to learn more about sustainability, for example. Schools are turning around, and students and young architects are setting a new agenda. They care about cities, equity, and climate. I’m watching all of this right now.
How would you describe the core mission in your work? And, what does success in that look like to you?
For a journalist, the core mission is to tell the truth, get it right, and also bring nuance to what you do. Things aren’t always black and white. It’s wonderfully challenging to present projects, people, and ideas as concisely as possible, but also with room for interpretation.
While we’re all looking at a lot of very serious issues in the world right now, sometimes it’s possible to bring a little bit of levity to the way you present an idea. I’m also very interested in how all aspects of culture touch the topic of architecture, and how artists, landscape architects, and urbanists all work with architects. Blurring the lines among disciplines and trying to reflect that in how we present the work at Record has been part of this core mission.
What does success in that look like? It’s hard to look back when you’re working so hard, but I just feel immense satisfaction — and it’s a real privilege — to have architect readers and to interact and engage with them. It’s one of the things I really like about our live events, because I get to meet people in our audience. Success is giving people what they need, listening to and reflecting on what the audience cares about, as well as what we as editors think the audience should care about.
“...having a great mentor is important...if you’re in architecture, it’s finding someone that you really respect and admire, who will help you and give you advice, and whose work or behavior you can model. Also, talk to people across generations, and not just within your own cohort.”
My last question for you, Cathleen, is, what advice would you give those just starting their careers?
Like a lot of people, my own path was a bit of a zig zag. I’ve raised a daughter, and I talk to her often about how you don’t have to be on a straight career path. You can try different things, you can take a time out, you can drop out. Travel and being open to other cultures, for example, is more important than ever. I would just urge people to try things that pique your interest, and then, when you find something that you love, give it your all and find which part of it you’re really good at. None of us can be good at absolutely everything, so focus on your strengths.
Do you have any additional advice for women who are just starting out in particular?
For women in particular, and everyone in general, having a great mentor is important — if you’re in journalism, that’s probably an editor, and if you’re in architecture, it’s finding someone that you really respect and admire, who will help you and give you advice, and whose work or behavior you can model. Also, talk to people across generations, and not just within your own cohort. Older women like myself get so much out of knowing younger women like you. And we’ve all come to see, in a really sharp way, how important mentorship is across race, and different language and nationalities. That’s more important than ever.
Absolutely. I really appreciate you saying this because that’s exactly why it’s been so important for us at Madame Architect to include a robust variety of generations in the magazine.
I’ve always liked when I go to the Madame Architect homepage and see a new, younger face — maybe I’ve heard of her firm but I haven’t heard of her. All of their stories are clearly very inspiring to your readers!
I go back to our content myself all the time, to help myself along. I especially love our Days With pieces for that reason.
I love to hear about daily routines; I never fail to read a good daily routine article. I loved the ones in women’s magazines when I was young! Especially because they always made it sound like everyone was living a very orderly life, except for me.
Exactly [laughs].
And I would think, “Oh, it would be so great, to get to the gym by six thirty, and to have my morning coffee by eight.”
And don’t forget your twenty minutes of meditation before all of that.
[Laughs] Right, exactly. Thank you so much Julia.
Thank you Cathleen.