During a career of more than 40 years, the Madrid-based Moneo has produced buildings of startling quality, no two of which are alike. Working mainly in his native Spain, which has regarded him as something of a national hero since his National Museum of Roman Art in Mérida opened in 1986, Moneo has approached commissions with the goal of making architecture that is simultaneously an ornament to the Old World and a beacon of the new. — tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com

The ancient Afghan city of Ghazni has been designated an Asian city of Islamic Culture by the Organisation of Islamic Co-operation. But outsiders will find it difficult to see the city's famous Islamic and pre-Islamic architectural wonders because of the Taliban insurgency. — BBC News

...even for a big gun like Koolhaas, the global depression has had an impact. Thus his new furniture line for Knoll called “Tools for Life.” It’s a pretty standard track for any architect when the commissions start to dry up; have some interns fart out designs for a furniture line, ship it off to China for production, then slap a price tag on it with no less that 4 zeros and BOOM! you’re back makin’ Bentley payments and wearing Prada suits in no time. — The World's Best Ever

In June this year UNStudio will launch the new organisation of its practice as an open-source knowledge-based practice operating projects around four specialised Knowledge Platforms.

As part of the reorganisation of the studio a new interactive online knowledge platform will be launched, aimed at facilitating the open exchange of knowledge, with the ultimate goal of introducing and encouraging the expansion from a collaborative to a co-creative working model for architecture. — unstudio.com

Sources close to the project said Foster + Partners... is helping Apple on the retail store design brief. — marketingmagazine.co.uk

Renzo Piano has been awarded the highest honor of the Architectural League of New York, the President's Medal. The prize is bestowed annually on individuals in recognition of extraordinary body of work in architecture, urbanism, or design. — bustler.net

Architect Michael Maltzan has designed prestigious museums, luxurious private residences and social housing in Downtown LA. Music has been a factor in his life since he first started to discover architecture and he ruminates on the connection between the two art forms while sharing songs from Big Star, Talking Heads and more. — kcrw.com

Visionary architect Paolo Soleri,the Italian-born designer of the experimental Arizona city near Cordes Junction called Arcosanti, died Tuesday. He was 93.

Arcosanti officials confirmed the death in a statement.

Soleri, one of the last living direct disciples of Frank Lloyd Wright, designed a $3.5 million pedestrian bridge in Scottsdale - Soleri Bridge & Plaza, the only completed bridge of the hundreds he designed. It is located southwest of Camelback and Scottsdale roads. — azcentral.com

The City of Melbourne has been certified carbon neutral, an important step toward its goal of becoming one of the world’s most sustainable cities.

In a carbon constrained economy, councillor Arron Wood said the certification by Low Carbon Australia against the National Carbon Offset Standard (NCOS) “was a solid demonstration of the City of Melbourne’s commitment to a more sustainable Melbourne.” — DesignBuild Source

Reading this was for me an epiphany. I could see, almost in a flash, the unity of building and landscape developing throughout Mies’s building art, ultimately morphing into the podium that binds the Seagram tower to the urban landscape — plaza, platform, an oasis amid the chaos of New York. This led me to reevaluate the importance of surrounding context, in Mies’s architecture throughout his career and to understand in a new light some of his statements, drawings, and photomontages. — Places Journal

“brave new color, for a brave new world.” — The LACMA Blog