In keeping with the designer's forest-themed interior motif, a pair of homesteader cabins from the late 1800s are being installed in Twitter's new digs in the historic Western Furniture Exchange and Merchandise Mart building, a 1937 art deco landmark on Market Street. [...]

In this spirit of reuse and reclamation, Lundberg saw the cabins as a novel way of breaking up the wide open spaces of a gutted floor in the old furniture mart that will become a casual dining area. — Marin Independent Journal

Contrary to what you may have read lately, the Museum of Modern Art is intent on carefully preserving the former American Folk Art Museum next door.

At least, the part of it that is most recognizable to the public: an 82-foot-high sculptural ensemble of 63 panels, cast in a gorgeous copper-bronze alloy [...]

“We will take the facade down, piece by piece, and we will store it,” Glenn D. Lowry, the director of the Museum of Modern Art, said in an interview last week. — nytimes.com

The Paris Métro, opened in 1900, extends over more than 200 kilometers of track, serving more than 300 individual stops. But there are 11 more stations that, though once built, now stand nearly abandoned. Many of these "ghost" or "phantom" stations shuttered after the occupation during WWII. [...]

Parisian mayoral candidate Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet has a bold plan for these phantom stations ... these abandoned spaces should be reclaimed for the city's residents. — The Atlantic Cities

What a National Register [of Historic Places] listing really means is a 20% federal tax credit for structural investing, along with any state tax incentives, but that's often not enough to make preservation a more appealing option over razing and starting over. [...]

Listing on the National Register certainly gives something of an economic incentive for preservation, as well as a national profile for these sites [...]

However, what historic sites ultimately need is sustainable funding. — Atlas Obscura

In the summer of 2011, photographer Victoria Cohen heard that the Chelsea Hotel would undergo drastic renovations to the structure, which was built in 1884. She spent three weeks documenting every nook and cranny of the building and the result is Hotel Chelsea, a collection of photographs of the interior in its authentic, untouched state, as so many knew and loved it. — Fast Company

For 100 years, the Los Angeles Aqueduct has delivered water to a thirsty city, wending its way for more than 200 miles from the Owens Valley, through canyons and deserts, down to the modern metropolis. A feat of engineering and a product of political maneuvering, it nurtured the region's growth while leaving conflict in its wake. — graphics.latimes.com

In conjunction with the symposium, "Test Sites: Experiments in the History of Space", the California College of the Arts (CCA) Architecture Division will stage the first exhibition devoted exclusively to the recent works of artisans and historians who harness scents, essences and fragrances in the reconstruction and preservation of historical spaces — An Olfactory Archive. — California College of the Arts

Watch a four-part interactive documentary about the fascinating past, present and future of high-rise living in cities around the world. — nytimes.com

From the air, the hills of Silver Lake, peppered with bungalows, must look like a leafy game of Snakes and Ladders. Roads insinuate their way up and around the mountain slopes and connecting them all from the lowest to the highest are dozens of vertiginous stone staircases. These are the historic Los Angeles Stairs, hidden and unknown to most of the city's residents and visitors. — bbc.co.uk

Edison’s idea: a house that could be built with one pour of cement. The process could eliminate not only the traditional work of erecting walls and roof but also much of the labor involved in finishing the interiors. Given the right mold, “stairs, mantels, ornamental ceilings, and other interior decorations and fixtures” would all be formed by the same giant piece of concrete. — slate.com

Trade organizations and builders of all stripes joined in the call for a tamping down of public expectations — especially those that might get cut out of the new modern style of construction. You see, plastic and glass and steel were the future. And since wood wasn't exactly presented as the building material of tomorrow, organizations like the Arkansas Soft Pine Bureau were happy to contribute by advising the industry to tone it down... — paleofuture.gizmodo.com

More than decade after Abbott's imaginative drawing, Eero Saarinen submitted a design for a gleaming metal curve to a competition, and the saga of the Arch began. Campbell, a history professor and the co-director of the Wendell Ford Public Policy Research Center at the University of Kentucky, joins Scott Simon to talk about the controversy around the design, the African-American residents who were displaced to build the Arch and whether the monument really symbolizes the opening of the West. — npr.org

This exhibition charts L.A.’s rapid transformation into one of the globe’s most influential industrial, economic and creative capitals. From its ambitious freeway network and sleek coffee shops, to its dynamic cultural destinations and experimental residences, the vast metropolis’s rich yet often underappreciated built environment is reexamined, promising new insight into the region’s development and impact as a vibrant laboratory for cutting-edge design. — pacificstandardtimepresents.org

The investor behind a controversial luxury housing complex in the German capital has suspended construction after thousands protested plans to remove a section of the Berlin Wall to accomodate the building. He will try to find a compromise at a meeting with officials later this month. — spiegel.de