A monumental recreation of the destroyed Arch of Triumph in Palmyra, Syria, has been unveiled in London’s Trafalgar Square.

The 1,800-year-old arch was destroyed by Islamic State militants last October and the 6-metre (20ft) model, made in Italy from Egyptian marble, is intended as an act of defiance: to show that restoration of the ancient site is possible if the will is there. — theguardian.com

What happens in domestic interiors appears to be very relevant for our societies.

Bernd Upmeyer, Editor-in-Chief, April 2016 — http://www.monu-magazine.com/news.htm

Sam Jacob Studio’s mixed-use development in the Hoxton Street conservation area retains the façade of the Victorian pub originally on the site while creating ground-floor community facilities with an apartment above.

The four-storey scheme will restore the last remaining piece of what was once a terraced street razed to the ground by bombing during the Second World War.

The new block is expressed as a curved wall punctured by diamond-shaped window openings. — Architects' Journal

Johnson returned home certain his life had been transformed. He found in Nazism a new international ideal. The aesthetic power and exaltation he experienced in viewing modernist architecture found its complete national expression in the Hitler-centered Fascist movement. Here was a way not merely to rebuild cities with a unified and monumental aesthetic vision for the Machine Age but to spur a rebirth of mankind itself. He had never expressed any interest in politics before. That had now changed. — Vanity Fair

NOT MANY ARCHITECTS get to reshape a wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. But Shohei Shigematsu, who runs the New York branch of Rem Koolhaas’s Rotterdam-based firm, OMA, has done precisely that. This month he converts a skylit, double-height section of the museum—the 1970s Robert Lehman Wing—into a graceful, cathedral-like setting for Manus x Machina, the Costume Institute’s spring show, opening May 5. — the Wall Street Journal

Brooklyn is finally getting a new skyscraper development worthy of its 2.6 million populace. Today, the Landmarks Preservation Commission approved SHoP Architects‘ vision for 9 DeKalb Avenue, a rehabilitation of the landmarked Dime Saving Bank that will marry it with a dramatic, supertall skyscraper behind, the first 1,000+ foot building to arrive in the borough. To bring back more of the building’s grandeur, its exterior and interior spaces will be restored. — 6sqft.com

Newcastle’s Grade II-listed The Gibson Street Baths building was constructed in 1906 by FH Holford as a public swimming pool and wash house.

Informal planning guidance says the building could be converted for a range of uses, from private or student residential accommodation to leisure and sports facilities, a hotel, studios or restaurant. ‘The planners are going to be very flexible,’ says Riggall. ‘The city council really wants to see it brought back into use’. — thespaces.com

His architecture was an antidote to the era’s brazen showiness: subtle and natural instead of flashy and proudly artificial. Although he built a handful of private homes and public buildings from the ground up, his reputation was made by his reimaginings of centuries-old museums — commissions others might have scorned as too constrained by the past — in the process of which he created a road map for both honoring history and transcending it. — NYT

An “Inflatable Museum” is about to be launched in Greater Manchester with the aim of bringing exhibits and educational programmes to schools in disadvantaged districts of the city.

It is transportable in a van, can be blown up in under half an hour and can accommodate a full school class. It incorporates moveable cabinets, a large open presentation area and high definition projection equipment. — globalconstructionreview.com

"And to me, as an African American, just realizing that this has actually come to be, that there's an actual National Museum for African American History and Culture on the Mall of Washington, D.C., and this museum should have happened years and years ago, but the realization that finally in America we're at a place where we can accept it ... It's one of the most prominent sites on the Mall. It's not somewhere tucked away. — Zena Howard, on Curbed

Last year, the team took part in the 'Tiny Home Community' competition, set up by members of the North Carolina branch of the American Institute of Architects. The competition was asking participants to design low-cost homes with prefabricated elements, that could house the homeless folk of Raleigh, North Carolina. More than 100 architectural offices from all over the world answered the call, including some well-established companies, but first prize was eventually awarded to riza3. — Vice