New York Times art critic and "Abroad" columnist Michael Kimmelman will become the paper's new architecture critic, the Times is announcing today. — featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com

For as long as I can remember, right back to when I was a teenager trying to piece together the story of architecture, the ziggurat at Eridu had been a presence in my life. I was haunted by the thought that somewhere in deepest Mesopotamia, today's southern Iraq, there lay, in ruins and largely hidden under sand, what might be the world's first monumental building: the mother of all architecture in the world's first metropolis. — Jonathan Glancey

Next month sees the launch of the Guardian's fourth annual young arts critics competition, open to all readers aged 18 and under. To help us get it under way, we want to put your questions to our team of critics. — guardian.co.uk

"Architecture is inherently a political act, be it in the public or private sector. As a process it begins long before actual design work, and it is difficult to do by oneself. Art can be political, but the work of art only has to be itself and can be done by oneself. Architecture is not Art." — Mary Ellen Carroll and Peter Noever, "To Locate One’s Self," Art Lies