Orb of Inanity?

Racked is no longer publishing. Thank you to everyone who read our work over the years. The archives will remain available here; for new stories, head over to Vox.com, where our staff is covering consumer culture for The Goods by Vox. You can also see what we’re up to by signing up here.

Times architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff: Not such a fan of the Chanel Mobile Art Pavilion. "If devoting so much intellectual effort to such a dubious undertaking might have seemed indulgent a year ago," he writes, "today it looks delusional. It's not just that New York and much of the rest of the world are preoccupied by economic turmoil and a recession, although the timing could hardly be worse. It's that the pavilion sets out to drape an aura of refinement over a cynical marketing gimmick. Surveying its self-important exhibits, you can't help but hope that the era of exploiting the so-called intersection of architecture, art and fashion is finally over." [NYT; Curbed]