[...] architectural historian William J R Curtis has set off the alarm bells by warning about the looming threat of destruction on Chandigarh's architectural heritage, terming the damage to buildings as "vulgarization" and "massacre."

According to Curtis, there is a clear and present danger to the legacy of city creator Le Corbusier and that the restoration measures are needed to be taken now. — timesofindia.indiatimes.com

The new commission for cultural heritage protection, an adviser to the Czech National Heritage Institute (NPÚ) director, has recommended that the state start protecting relatively young works of architecture from the second half of the 20th century [...]

“Unlike the architecture of the interwar Czechoslovakia, the post-war architecture has been omitted by protection programs so far, also because its valuable pieces are more difficult to distinguish." — praguepost.com

A Catholic church, a theater and one of the nearly 50 schools closed by Chicago Public Schools last year are among the most endangered buildings in the city, a local preservation group said today.

Preservation Chicago today released its Chicago 7 list, an annual collection of seven local, historic properties in danger of being lost to demolition or decay. — chicagobusiness.com

Hundreds of colonial-era structures have been destroyed in recent years to make way for modern ones like the Centrepoint tower. Completed last year, the glassy 25-story skyscraper looms over a historic block that includes the dilapidated 100-year-old Supreme Court building and City Hall, which, with its white paint and intricately tiered roof, draws easy comparisons to a wedding cake.

The condition of many older buildings makes them targets for tear-down. — latimes.com

A yellow-roofed warehouse that featured in a James Bond film has been given listed status.

The Spectrum building, formally the Renault Distribution Centre, in Swindon, was designed by Sir Norman Foster and features yellow steel 'umbrella masts' and a yellow roof around the single-storey glass-walled warehouse.

Built in 1980, the building featured as the backdrop to scenes in the 1984 James Bond film, A View to a Kill. It has been given Grade II* listing. — dailymail.co.uk

London has its gracious Victorian mansions, New York has its elegant brownstones and Paris has its ornate Empire-style buildings. But what architectural legacy will future Abu Dhabi residents have to remind them of the city's early boom period?

The fear is that Abu Dhabi's headlong modernisation will eliminate all evidence of the city's evolution, leaving nothing significant to bridge the gap between the pre-oil age and the skyscraper city currently being built. — thenational.ae

The Chinese winner of architecture’s most prestigious award has criticised the wanton demolition that has left many of the nation’s cities fragmented and almost unrecognisable to their citizens.

The comments from Wang Shu, who will on Friday receive the 2012 Pritzker prize in a ceremony in Beijing, highlight widespread complaints in China about urban planning amid a process of urbanisation that saw more than 20m rural dwellers move to cities last year alone. — ft.com

Israel’s ages-old city, Jerusalem, is rightly famous for its warm, honey-colored limestone architecture. But its lazily hip rival, Tel Aviv, has lately begun garnering attention for a contrasting — and equally abundant — assemblage of cool and creamy Bauhaus buildings. — washingtonpost.com