With its stunning interiors and handsome brick facades, the Bradbury Building has remained one of Los Angeles' architectural treasures for nearly 120 years. The building was constructed in 1893 and showcases Victorian-style interiors complete with ornate cast-iron railings, polished woodwork... View full entry
A 360-year-old passageway once used by British monarchs has been rediscovered inside Parliament, revealing a piece of history that was thought to have been permanently covered up after World War II.
[...] access to the passage had remained hidden in plain sight for about 70 years.
— The New York Times
As the Houses of Parliament in the United Kingdom undergo a $5 billion renovation and restoration project by architecture studio BDP, an archival team has rediscovered a hidden passageway once used by British monarchs, members of Parliament, and dignitaries like Benjamin Franklin that dates to the... View full entry
Since 2012, Hill has surveyed hundreds of structures that she believes once served as a home to enslaved African Americans. More often than not, the buildings bear no visible trace of their past; many have been converted into garages, offices, or sometimes—unnervingly—bed-and-breakfasts. In some cases the structures have fallen into ruin or vanished entirely, leaving behind a depression in the ground. — Atlas Obscura
Writing in Atlas Obscura, writer Sabrina Imbler takes an in-depth look at the work of Jobie Hill, the Iowa City architect who started Saving Slave Houses, a project that aims to catalog, document, and ultimately preserve the remaining "living and working environments of enslaved people" in... View full entry
This post is brought to you by AIA San Francisco The American Institute of Architects, (AIASF) and the Center for Architecture + Design are launching the 2020 exhibition season with the opening of "Villages of West Africa: an intimate journey across time" on view February 27 to April 20 in the... View full entry
27 cultural organizations, including the Smithsonian Institution, have signed on to an initiative that aims to bring their 3D scanned cultural heritage collections into the public domain. The initiative, launched by Sketchfab, "allows museums and similar organizations to share their 3D data... View full entry
The Society of Architectural Historians (SAH) has launched the next phase of its ongoing SAH Data Project, a two-year study aimed at assessing the "status of the field of architectural history in higher education." The latest phase of the project, which is led by postdoctoral researcher Sarah M... View full entry
As the impacts of the Coronavirus outbreak spread across the globe, large-scale gatherings and conferences planned for this spring are weighing whether to proceed as planned. Italy, where the annual Salone del Mobile Milan and the Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia are set to... View full entry
The Dallas Theater Center (DTC) has announced that New York City-based architects Diller Scofidio + Renfro have been selected to renovate the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Kalita Humphreys Theater in Dallas, Texas. According to a press release unveiled by the DTC, the “renovation efforts... View full entry
Welcome to “Countryside, the Future”: This is what you might get if you asked a celebrated European philosopher-architect to reinvent the Iowa State Fair. No mess, no smells, just acres of color printouts, cryptic homilies about nature, and a couple of pesticide-spraying drones. Did you know that agriculture is increasingly computerized? — New York Magazine
New York Magazine's architecture critic, Justin Davidson, takes a no-holds-barred look at the Countryside, The Future exhibition at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City. The exhibition, developed by a research and exhibition team led by OMA/AMO and Rem... View full entry
The Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation (BWAF) and the Architecture and Design Museum in Los Angeles (A+D) have announced the latest iteration of the Built by Women exhibition, a program designed to celebrate "the breadth of achievement by women at the building industry’s highest... View full entry
An unprecedented shutdown of museums is taking place in Venice, Turin and Milan as private and public institutions close their doors in the wake of the coronavirus (Covid-2019) outbreak across northern Italy. Seven Italian regions have now been instructed to close museums and implement various restrictions: Lombardy, Piedmont, Veneto, Emilia-Romagna, Liguria, Trentino-Alto Adige and Friuli-Venezia Giulia. — The Art Newspaper
The coronavirus (Covid-2019) outbreak that started in Wuhan, China is affecting more and more regions worldwide as a sharp rise in reported cases in South Korea, Japan, Singapore, Iran, and Italy is making headlines this week. According to The Art Newspaper, all museums in seven regions throughout... View full entry
Forensic Architecture's first United States survey exhibition, Forensic Architecture: True to Scale, made its debut last week at Miami's Museum of Art and Design at Miami Dade College. The exhibition, according to a press release, "explores a new understanding of architecture, a new... View full entry
In a statement posted the American Institute of Architects (AIA) website, the organization explains that a group of former AIA presidents have written a letter directly to President Donald Trump denouncing the "Making Federal Buildings Beautiful Again" executive order. Previously on... View full entry
The National Museum of African American Music is on track to open in Nashville later this year...it will be the only institution dedicated to showcasing music genres created and inspired by black Americans.
In 2015, [mayor] Karl Dean, announced that plans would move forward to redevelop the old convention center on Fifth and Broadway into a brand-new space...Nearly three years from the start of the project, the museum is nearly finished and it is expected to be completed by this summer
— Black Enterprise
Designed by Nashville-based Harold Thompson Architects, the museum will house more than 1,400 artifacts, seven galleries, a theater, and live music. "The perception nationally, I think, is that Nashville is just country music. And while we love country music, I think it’s important to touch base... View full entry
At a time when states are debating the removal of Confederate monuments, Maryland unveiled bronze statues of famed abolitionists Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass during a ceremony Monday night in the Maryland State House.
The life-sized statues were dedicated during a special joint session of the Maryland General Assembly in the Old House Chamber, the room where slavery was abolished in the state in 1864.
— ABC News
According to ABC News, the statues were dedicated during Black History Month and have been made to show Tubman and Douglass as they would have appeared in age and dress in 1864. Harriet Tubman. Photo by Danielle E. Gaines. Via marylandmatters.org "A mark of true greatness is shining light on a... View full entry