Swiss star architect Peter Zumthor has lost a battle for ownership of the spa and hotel complex in Vals, eastern Switzerland, which he designed.

The commune, which owns the complex, decided on Friday night to sell it to 35-year-old property developer Remo Stoffel. — swissinfo.ch

“It had such a low budget. I was criticized for putting the windows in too small, but it got more expensive the more glass I had. I wasn’t the one who put the workers near the windows, limiting the light let in. Most people don’t realize I didn’t design the interior.”

Despite proceeding to design award-winning buildings and products worldwide, Graves holds the Portland Building as one of his greatest achievements. He still enjoys talking about the sculpture that sits in front, Portlandia. — djcoregon.com

A bond forged in storm-ravaged New Orleans between actor Brad Pitt and a local architecture firm is bearing fruit in Kansas City — and may show the path forward to reusing dozens of empty schools.

The long-closed Bancroft School at 4300 Tracy Ave. will be renovated into affordable apartments and a community center with the aid of the Make It Right Foundation founded by Pitt... — kansascity.com

Preservationist John Linnert, a Costa Mesa architect, noticed crews working on the upstairs interior in January and reported them to the city planning staff. He has kept a close watch on the building in recent years. — latimes.com

About 200 meters east of his doorstep, behind a high red wall under the perennial watch of large, uniformed men in unmarked vans, was Zhongnanhai, a sprawling, closed compound home to the offices and reception halls of the central leadership of China. "They must have run out of space," Sun said, flicking away his cigarette. — The Atlantic

On Thursday, Architect of the Capitol Stephen Ayers testified before the House Appropriations Legislative Branch subcommittee to explain why the boost is needed for fiscal year 2013.

According to Ayers, aging buildings around the Capitol campus and unexpected events, including last year’s 5.8-magnitude earthquake, will require more money. — thehill.com

Venturi and Schwartz’s efforts would have been for naught had it not been for Deborah Sarnoff and Robert Gotkin, a dermatologist and a plastic surgeon, respectively, who bought Lieb House for a dollar and spent another $100,000 moving it to Glen Cove, N.Y., where they turned it into a guesthouse that sits across the driveway from their home on the Long Island Sound — a spacious house that Venturi and Scott Brown’s firm completed in 1985. — tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com

Liang Sicheng (1901-1972) is known as China’s “Father of Modern Architecture,” but he expressed strong sentiments throughout his career when it came to preserving the country’s heritage and identity. In the 1950s, when Beijing was selected as the nation's capital, he lobbied to keep its ancient buildings intact and urged the government to build an entirely new city instead. The ruling party disagreed, and ancient Beijing has become a distant memory. — artinfo.com

“A replica will be built,” one official unapologetically told the state news media. — NYT

It sparked a thousand childhood nightmares – now the original workhouse from Oliver Twist has been discovered. But a row has erupted over what to do with the building. — telegraph.co.uk

Now the Palais Stoclet, considered the best surviving realization of a Gesamtkunstwerk, or "total work of art," faces an uncertain future as it marks its centennial. For the past decade this Jugendstil masterpiece has been a battleground for the four sisters who inherited it, even as they seek to protect the coveted private property from the ravages of decay, pollution, theft and the prying eyes of the public. — online.wsj.com

Through meticulous infiltration, UX members have carried out shocking acts of cultural preservation and repair, with an ethos of “restoring those invisible parts of our patrimony that the government has abandoned or doesn’t have the means to maintain.” The group claims to have conducted 15 such covert restorations, often in centuries-old spaces, all over Paris. — wired.com

... much of the capital's ancient architecture will soon be no more than a memory, according to one of the world's leading authorities, Niels Gotschow, as haphazard urbanisation and a desire for modernity change Kathmandu.

"To put things into a book is an act of preservation because one day this will be the only way to remember," says Gutschow, who has dedicated the last four decades to chronicling and preserving Nepal's architectural treasures. — mysinchew.com

... the 8,400-square-foot residence known as the Andrew Fuller House and designed by modernist A. Quincy Jones may be doomed to a wrecking ball. The city has issued a demolition permit to the Frost Bank trust department, which is officially listed as the owner but is acting on behalf of Amon Carter III, the grandson of former Star-Telegram Publisher Amon G. Carter Sr. — star-telegram.com

“It’s just such an awful building that the only reason to keep it would be as a monument to stupidity,” said Mark Wigley, the dean of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. — nytimes.com