Italy’s highest administrative court has definitively barred McDonald’s from building a 10,000 sq. m outlet in the shadow of the third-century Baths of Caracalla, one of Rome’s most celebrated ancient sites. Published on 28 December, the council of state’s ruling upheld the verdict of a lower court preventing the fast food chain from using a tract of land adjacent to the baths to open a drive-through restaurant and parking area. — The Art Newspaper

Cambodia’s Culture and Fine Arts Ministry has rejected a proposal by the Hong Kong casino operator NagaCorp to build a resort and theme park near the sprawling Angkor Wat temple complex after concerns raised by Unesco.

The government’s rejection of NagaCorp’s plan to develop 75 hectares of land located around 500m south of the protected buffer zone of Angkor was announced earlier this week, according to Cambodian media outlets. — The Art Newspaper

The World Monuments Fund (WMF) has called on the Peruvian government to halt the next phase of construction of an airport outside the Andean town of Chinchero and conduct a heritage impact assessment to prevent irreversible damage to treasured Incan sites.

The WMF designated the Sacred Valley of the Incas, which stretches from the city of Cusco to Machu Picchu, the crown jewel of Inca heritage, a 2020 World Monuments Watch site. — The Art Newspaper

Finland is updating its tentative list in line with the World Heritage Agreement [...]

At the request of the Ministry of Education and Culture, the Finnish Heritage Agency has produced a proposal for the tentative list, “The Architectural Works of Alvar Aalto – a Human Dimension to the Modern Movement”, which has been created in close collaboration with experts from the Alvar Aalto Foundation and ICOMOS Finland. — Alvar Aalto Foundation

Less than 8% of sites on the National Register are associated with women, Latinos, African Americans or other minorities. [...]

The reason for this underrepresentation is an overly technical, legalistic approach to determining what merits designation. — Los Angeles Times

In cities across Asia, residents and design buffs are rallying to save or document postwar buildings that officials consider too new, too ugly or too unimportant to protect from demolition. Many of the structures were municipal buildings that served as downtown hubs of civic life. The campaigns, in a sense, are an attempt to preserve the collective memories stored inside. — The New York Times

Despite widespread opposition, the Indian prime minister Narendra Modi has begun a £2bn overhaul of Delhi's grand complex of government buildings in a bid to sever the nation from its colonial past.

At a ceremony held last week, Modi laid the foundation stone for a new building to replace Parliament House, designed by English architects Edward Lutyens and Herbert Baker, which upon its completion in 1927 became the seat of power for British-ruled India. — The Art Newspaper

After a five-week lockdown, several conservation projects have begun in earnest in Mosul as part of a Unesco programme aimed at restoring the rich heritage of the war-ravaged Iraqi city’s old quarter. Restoration work funded by Germany has begun on the Al-Aghawat mosque, houses are being refurbished with the aid of the European Union, and the rehabilitation of the Dominican Al-Saa’a church is under way with funding from the United Arab Emirates. — The Art Newspaper

Google Arts & Culture has launched a new online initiative calling attention to five Unesco World Heritage sites under threat from climate change. The Heritage on the Edge series reveals how rising sea levels, coastal erosion and extreme weather patterns are endangering landmarks across the world [...]. — The Art Newspaper

Grain elevators were once an icon of Canada’s west: often painted a bright boxcar red, they stood in towns across Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. [...]

In the 1930s there were nearly 6,000 towers; now fewer than a thousand remain. The destruction, in many ways, mirrors the broader decline of rural communities in western Canada. — The Guardian

Working with an international team of researchers and artists, Tomšič and Bricelj Baraga study, map and archive fading sites and Brutalist-style structures. They’re building a database of about 120 case studies across Europe and in former Soviet states and will be releasing a book this year. — The Guardian