"[1] This motivated Muschamp to engage in boisterous conversations outside the home in later years, particularly in the company of such up-and-coming architects as Elizabeth Diller and Ricardo Scofidio, Frank Gehry, Rem Koolhaas, Jean Nouvel, Bernard Tschumi and Tod Williams, which formed the basis for his perceptive and often vehement architectural commentary and criticism.

[2] Muschamp attended the University of Pennsylvania but dropped out after two years to move to New York City, where he was a regular at Andy Warhol's Factory.

During this period, he began writing architectural criticism for various magazines, including Vogue, House & Garden, and Art Forum.

During his controversial tenure at the Times, Muschamp rose, according to Nicolai Ouroussoff,[3] to preeminence as the nation's foremost judge of the architecture world.

[4] His detractors, noted the New York Observer, argued that his conflicts of interest, from socializing with his subjects frequently, and his "iconoclasm and obscurantism, his unapologetic dilettantism" were along with his "very public break downs" a source of a "fall from grace.