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Though Harris County Judge Ed Emmett is the public official most closely tied to the salvation of the Astrodome, many private citizens have played important roles, too.
Without their many letters, petitions, documents and road trips – the tools of architectural preservation – Houston might have lost its most iconic building.
— Houston Chronicle
Houston Chronicle editor Allyn West retells the long and twisting tale of how the Astrodome went from designated wrecking-ball fodder to National Historic Landmark and the activism behind it. View full entry
Venice is doomed, says, Salvatore Settis, unless there is a moral revival in Italy. He is a professor of archaeology who has been an advisor on cultural matters to the Italian government and was head of the Getty Center for the Arts and the Humanities in the 1990s. Italians know him from his eloquent denunciations in the press, which say that everything that has made La Bella Italia so beautiful is going to hell in a handcart. — The Art Newspaper
The Art Newspaper reviews If Venice dies, the new book by former Getty Center for the Arts and the Humanities director, Salvatore Settis, and elaborates on his warning calls of La Serenissima's impending doom: "Venice, he emphasises repeatedly, is a paradigm for other cities around the world in... View full entry
Earlier today, news broke that the De Blasio administration has hashed out a deal with JPMorgan Chase to demolish its existing headquarters at 270 Park Avenue, and replace the structure with a shiny new 70-story building. The deal was negotiated in the wake of the Midtown East rezoning, which loosened zoning regulations for the area in exchange for developers providing street-level and infrastructure improvements. — Curbed New York
Not so fast! said architecture critics and preservationists when news broke that the midcentury 270 Park Avenue tower in Manhattan's East Midtown, currently home of banking giant JPMorgan Chase, had quietly been selected—not for landmark designation—but for the chopping block. Designed by... View full entry
The Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (Columbia GSAPP) announced today that it will be launching a new Ph.D. Program in Historic Preservation—the first of its kind in the U.S. GSAPP has been a leader in the field of preservation education since it... View full entry
As London’s Robin Hood Gardens [...] is destroyed despite a high-profile campaign to save it, we look at some cherished examples of modernist architecture from the 50s, 60s and 70s — The Guardian
Last month, the V&A announced that it had acquired a three-story segment of the Robin Hood Gardens council estate, an iconic and not uncontroversial example of brutalist architecture currently being demolished, to preserve a significant moment in history. The Guardian takes a look at other... View full entry
Temple Works, a former flax mill in Leeds, has been listed for sale, in the Pugh auction on December 7th, with a starting price of just one pound according to the Yorkshire Evening Post. The Egyptian-influenced industrial building is one of the city's oldest and most cherished, and is the only... View full entry
Tomorrow, Nov. 28, NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission will vote to consider calendaring Philip Johnson's AT&T Building for a landmark designation hearing. 550 Madison Avenue, formerly known as the AT&T Building or the Sony Tower, is an iconic postmodern skyscraper located in Manhattan... View full entry
Can Helmut Jahn's Thompson Center be saved? A newly released short documentary, Starship Chicago, delves into the struggle and controversy around preserving the state of Illinois building. Some see the building as a unique representation of transparent government and Chicago's architectural... View full entry
A three-storey chunk of an east London council estate that is venerated and despised in almost equal measures has been acquired by the V&A.
The museum announced it had made one of the most unusual property deals in its history: rescuing an enormous chunk of the Robin Hood Gardens estate, complete with walkway and maisonette interiors.
— The Guardian
Completed in 1972 and considered an icon of brutalist architecture — representing the good and the bad traits of the movement, depending on the perspective — the Tower Hamlets "Robin Hood Gardens" council estate is being demolished. By salvaging an intact piece of the building designed by... View full entry
As it’s currently written, the bill would entirely eliminate the federal Historic Tax Credit program (HTC), which provides a 20 percent tax credit for the redevelopment of blighted buildings and renovation of notable architectural landmarks. — Architectural Digest
The Reagan Administration’s Historic Tax Credit program, which helps fund historic renovation projects, is in jeopardy of being scrapped in the new tax plan unveiled in the House last week. According to Architectural Digest, the conservative idol's program has preserved more than 40,000 total... View full entry
Brand Barcelona’s comeback begins with a contribution from its heaviest hitter: Antoni Gaudí. Almost a century after his death, the architect of La Sagrada Familia is still synonymous with the city. On 16 November, Gaudí’s first house, Casa Vicens, begun in 1883, will open permanently to the public for the first time. — The Guardian
With tourism considerably down due to mass demonstrations and political unrest, Catalonia's capital Barcelona is hoping to lure more visitors back when a stunning architectural gem in the Gràcia district opens to the public on November 16: Casa Vicens, a summer house for wealthy industrialist... View full entry
Fifteen years after IKEA demolished part of it for a parking lot, a Marcel Breuer-designed office building in New Haven has become a stage for art. [...]
Now, Burr is building on those explorations in his current show, Body/Building. Spread out over the first floor of Breuer’s gutted local icon, the show uses objects that weave together a story about himself, the site, and his city.
— citylab.com
Tom Burr / New Haven, Phase 1, 2017, installation view, Bortolami, New Haven New Haven-native, and now New York-based, artist Tom Burr tells the story of one of the city's most iconic, and controversial, buildings in his current show Body/Building, now on display inside the gutted belly of the... View full entry
The restoration aims not only to clean and maintain the structure, but also to offer an insight into what the cathedral would have looked like in the 13th century. Its interior was designed to be a radiant vision, as close to heaven on earth as a pilgrim might come, although many modern visitors have responded more with shock than with awe. The architecture critic Martin Filler has described the project as a “scandalous desecration of a cultural holy place.” — The New York Times
The decade-long restoration of Chartres' grand cathedral (rebuilt in its current Gothic style between 1194 and 1220) isn't going over without controversy: is the dirt that's currently being scrubbed off its walls, ceilings, and even Madonna statues, part of the building's history or merely... View full entry
In order to avoid being listed by Historic England, a developer recently demolished an ornate Jacobean pendant ceiling at one of their sites. Previously a hotel and bar, the owners, Midas Properties/G&E Baio Ltd, had a planning application to subdivide and convert the building into student... View full entry
Talk about redeveloping the long-vacant Michigan Central Station in Detroit's Corktown area heated up again Thursday during an announcement about this year's Detroit Homecoming, which will hold the first significant private event in the 104-year-old train station since the mid-1980s. [...]
"(Redevelopment of) the depot is going to take a marathon, but we're not at the beginning of the race, we're a few miles into it," said Matthew Moroun, whose father, Matty, bought the building in 1995.
— crainsdetroit.com
"I said, 'there's one thing: Every time I read a damn national story about Detroit, there's a picture of the train station with the holes in the windows as the international image of the city's decline,'" Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan is quoted saying, recalling his conversation with billionaire... View full entry
