New York to Boston
217 miles, three days
Day 1: New York City
This year, New York has the greatest concentration of T+L Design Award winners and runners-up of any city. A daylong tour of these new design-worthy destinations is hardly a chore: almost all revolve around shopping, eating, and drinking. Start in midtown Manhattan with a look at the latest (1) Apple products in the gleaming new flagship store (767 Fifth Ave.; 212/336-1440), a crystalline cube of structural glass encasing a glass elevator and staircase that go down to a subterranean shopping level. Then head south to SoHo for a cappuccino while perusing Michael Graves teakettles, Philippe Starck juicers, and other classic-modern housewares at the (2) Alessi flagship (130 Greene St.; 212/941-7300). Created by digital-savvy New York architects Lise Anne Couture and Hani Rashid of Asymptote Studio, the fluid interior is all curving counters and angled walls covered in reflective blue vinyl. Just a few doors up the street is (3) Centovini restaurant, owned by Murray Moss, Nicola Marzovilla, and Franklin Getchell (25 W. Houston St.; 212/219-2113). For lunch, sample a porchetta-and-broccoli-rabe panini and a glass of Barbaresco. In the evening, venture out to the red-hot Meatpacking District for dinner at (4) Buddakan (75 Ninth Ave; 212/989-6699), a vast, theatrical interior—Versailles meets Shanghai with a touch of Vegas—by legendary Parisian designer Christian Liaigre. If you're not yet experiencing sensory overload, head due east for a nightcap at the cool, clubby (5) Rose Bar or Jade Bar at the Gramercy Park Hotel (2 Lexington Ave.; 212/920-3300), refurbished in sensual, surreal style by artist Julian Schnabel.
>See our hotel picks for New York City.
Day 2: New York to Boston
Rent a car for the trip to Boston, but before getting on I-95, stop in the Bronx to see the accordion-pleated aluminum-and-glass addition to the (6) Bronx Museum of the Arts by Miami-based Arquitectonica (1040 Grand Concourse; 718/681-6000; www.bronxmuseum.org). Continue north on I-95 into Connecticut, where a few short detours reveal the state's surprisingly rich history of modern architecture. In New Canaan, the National Trust for Historic Preservation will open (7) Philip Johnson's Glass House in April for public tours (www.philipjohnsonglasshouse.org; a full tour schedule begins June 23). The 47-acre, multi-building property, which Johnson bequeathed to the National Trust before his death in 2005 at age 98, catalogues almost 50 years of experimentation by the elder statesman of American architecture, from the iconic glass-walled main house, built in 1949, to the Gehryesque visitors' pavilion, designed by Johnson when he was 88. Thirty-eight miles up I-95, stop in New Haven.. The Yale University campus boasts landmarks by Modernism's leading lights, including Eero Saarinen, Paul Rudolph, Gordon Bunshaft, and Louis Kahn, whose (8) Yale Center for British Art (1080 Chapel St.; 203/432-2800; ycba.yale.edu) and newly restored (9) Yale University Art Gallery (1111 Chapel St.; 203/432-0600; artgallery.yale.edu) are masterpieces of stark geometry and exquisitely crafted concrete. Take I-91 north from New Haven to Hartford, then head east on I-84 and east on I-90, the infamous Mass Pike, into Boston.
>See our hotel picks for Boston.
Day 3: Boston
Diller Scofidio + Renfro's new (10) Institute of Contemporary Art (100 Northern Ave; 617/478-3100; www.icaboston.org) is the most audacious newcomer to the Boston skyline, but not the first modern structure to jolt Beantown out of its brick-colonial slumber. After a visit to the ICA, spend the day touring its predecessors, including the 1976 (11) Hancock Tower (200 Clarendon St.)—a sharply angled skyscraper sheathed in brilliantly reflective glass—designed by Pei Cobb Freed & Partners and the firm's earlier (12) Christian Science Center (175 Huntington Ave.), with its 670-foot-long reflecting pool separating the neo-Romanesque Mother Church from the Brutalist concrete administration tower and Christian Science Monitor broadcast center. Across the Charles River, in Cambridge, is another masterpiece of Brutalism: Harvard's (13) Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts (24 Quincy St.; 617/495-3251; www.ves.fas.harvard.edu). Built in 1963, it's the only building in North America designed by the granddaddy of modern architecture, Le Corbusier. Inside its concrete shell, an elegant mix of sculptural curves and rational grids, the Harvard Film Archive and two public galleries showcase contemporary art from the university and beyond.
