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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
Others are concerned the demolition of its famed French architectural gems will render Ho Chi Minh City indistinguishable from other Asian megacities. "In the 1960s and 1970s it was very much French, but now it's very Americanized, McDonald's on every corner," said Hiep Nguyen, born in Ho City Minh City and author of several books on its architectural history. "A streetscape without a story has no value," he added. — dw.com
"City officials are now writing a nine-point plan to classify buildings and mark some for protection," DW writes, "but admit such a huge task could take years to be implemented." View full entry
Completed in 1905 in one of Kansas City, Missouri's oldest neighborhoods, the Westport Presbyterian Church was in dire need of repair after suffering from a catastrophic fire in 2011. Undertaking all the technical challenges that come with a project of this nature, architecture practice BNIM... View full entry
The Parker Center, depending on who you ask, is either a midcentury icon, or a powerful symbol of Los Angeles' racist past. Located downtown, the building was home to the LAPD up until 2009 when they relocated due to expensive retrofits needed on the site. Designed by Welton Becket—the architect... View full entry
Frrank Lloyd Wright was never one to fret about meeting deadlines, sticking to budgets or roofs that leaked. So there is something fitting about the delayed, but altogether triumphant, restoration of Wright's Unity Temple, [...] the finest public building of Wright's Chicago years and home to one of the most beautiful rooms in America.
Instead of finishing on schedule last fall, the $25 million project is wrapping up just in time for the 150th anniversary of Wright's birthday, June 8.
— chicagotribune.com
"Success, it's often said, has many fathers, and so it is with here," Kamin writes. "A team of consultants led by Chicago's Harboe Architects has lavished exacting care on every aspect of this project, from the restoration of jewel-like art glass to the recreation of textured plaster walls." View full entry
An interactive map of the former Soviet Union’s Constructivist architectural heritage went online just days before the city of Moscow published a list of 4,500 apartment buildings proposed for demolition as part of a plan to relocate up to 1.6 million residents. Describe by many residents as a property grab [...] the demolition plan has proven so unpopular that thousands turned up for a demonstration against it in Moscow on Sunday 14 May carrying signs with slogans like “My house is my castle”. — The Art Newspaper
"The plan has also alarmed preservationists," The Art Newspaper writes. "Initially described as an effort to upgrade residents from pre-fabricated mass housing built under Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, the architectural targets have broadened and fears are mounting that it has become a... View full entry
The World Monuments Fund (WMF) launched its first Instagram campaign [...] to draw attention to the plight of the world’s Modern buildings, an increasing number of which are at risk because of the lack of regulations or political will needed to protect them.
The fund kicks off the programme with a list of 30 sites nominated by architects, experts and students posted on its website and is appealing to the public to add to this list by submitting nominations via Instagram.
— theartnewspaper.com
"The list will be sent to an advisory council formed of architects, including Annabelle Selldorf, designers and critics, who will advise the WMF on the next phase of the Modern Century programme."The sites included on the initial list of 30 nominees are:Hall of Nations (pictured in the cover photo... View full entry
Built in 1932, the VDL Research House designed by Richard Neutra is one of Southern California’s modernist gems. Now it has been named a National Historic Landmark by the U.S. Department of the Interior following the tireless work of its owners, the Cal Poly Pomona Foundation and, in particular... View full entry
What's the value of history? It's a question that keeps coming up around the world as new projects displace older architecture. In Vietnam, many of Ho Chi Minh City's distinctive (and, in many cases, French-colonial-era) structures are being dispatched to memory in favor of newer developments... View full entry
Princeton University researchers have announced the development of a low-cost, nontoxic coating that can preserve iconic stone structures from decay. Comprised of hydroxyapatite, a calcium compound that can be found in bones and teeth, the solution seeps into the stone’s surface, binding cracks... View full entry
Earlier today, the U.S. Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell announced 24 new National Historic Landmarks. Defined as “historic properties of exceptional value to the nation [that promote] the preservation efforts of federal, state, and local agencies and Native American tribes, as well as... View full entry
Just steps away from the iconic Erasmus Bridge, a new office for KAAN Architecten has joins the crowd of notable buildings in the heart of the Dutch city of Rotterdam. The project transformed 1,400 square meters of a site with a storied history. Designed by Henri Timo Zwiers in the mid-fifties... View full entry
The Rothko Chapel in Houston, a masterpiece of midcentury architecture, houses 14 panels by the revered artist Mark Rothko. But the Chapel is in need of some TLC, from fixing the HVAC system to improving the lighting. The New York-based office Architecture Research Office (ARO) has been selected... View full entry
A day after the Austrian government said it was planning to tear down the house where Adolf Hitler was born, the interior minister now says it is likely to be redesigned.
The idea is to prevent the property from being a pilgrimage site for neo-Nazis. [...]
"the new plan comes after members of a government-appointed commission on the future of the house suggested that erasing the house would give the impression Austria was trying to erase its past."
— npr.org
The tricky business of architectural preservation:Plans unveiled to save Aberdeen home of Mitsubishi founderRIP: Bruce Goff's Bavinger House demolishedNo guarantees for historic residential architecture in "real-estate limbo"The price of keeping Britain's 'Downton Abbeys' from crumblingPreserving... View full entry
[Rosa Parks' home] on South Deacon Street had become blighted and faced demolition in recent years, but its fortunes have since changed. The home’s facade has been removed and will be refashioned into a replica-style artwork that will be shown in museums across Europe...“She loved the city, but I don't think the city loved her very much back,” [Parks' niece Rhea] McCauley said. “This house should have been preserved here. But we live in a world where every other project takes precedence.” — Detroit Free Press
You would think that the Detroit home of Rosa Parks would have more easily garnered local support for its preservation in the present day. But as Parks' niece Rhea McCauley described, her aunt was still treated with hostility when she moved into the city in 1957, two years after she refused to... View full entry
