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More praise for Rem Koolhaas’ new public library in Seattle. Paul Goldberger calls it “the most important new library to be built in a generation, and the most exhilarating. Koolhaas has always been a better architect than social critic, and the building conveys a sense of the possibility, even the urgency, of public space in the center of a city. The design is not so much a rejection of traditional monumentality as a reinterpretation of it, and it celebrates the culture of the book as passionately, in its way, as does the New York Public Library on Fifth Avenue. The Seattle building is thrilling from top to bottom.”

A New York judge has dismissed a suit by neighbors of the Metropolitan Musem to block the museum from expanding. The judge said “she was dismissing the group’s petition objecting to a 300,000-square-foot expansion, partly because some claims were made after a statute of limitations had expired and partly because the Met had already scaled back its plans.”

Last week’s art auctions in New York took in $186 million and set numerous records. “The record price that resonated most was for a joke painting by Canadian artist Richard Prince, which was bought by a young American hedge-fund manager for $747,000, four times its estimate. On a stark grey canvas, the artist has painted the words from a cracker joke: “I never had a penny to my name. So I changed my name.” With prices like this, contemporary art cannot be a joke – surely.”