A Syrian boy hand-built a model of what his hometown might look like after the country’s civil war, and now “Future Aleppo” is on display in Los Angeles. [...]

As he watched his city get demolished, Mohammed carefully crafted his vision for a future Aleppo using paper, wood, colored pencils, and glue. He lovingly recreated destroyed landmarks, like the medieval Citadel and his favorite park, and added imaginary, forward-looking buildings and design features [...]. — KCRW Design & Architecture

Syrian government troops have retaken Palmyra from Islamic State forces, with help from Russian air support, the Syrian army said in a statement on Thursday. Politicians in Russian welcomed the news as a triumph, as widely reported by the state’s media, but few details have emerged about the condition of the ancient site, where Isil has previously wreaked large-scale destruction. [...]

Isil first took Palmyra in May 2015 and the extremist group destroyed a number of important monuments [...]. — theartnewspaper.com

Seeking to stem migration to Europe, the EU has remained largely silent about the wall's impact on people seeking asylum — Deutsche Welle

My university became a hub of protest. Campus life alternated between classes and protests and raids by security forces...Yusuf, though trained as an architect, volunteered in all possible ways...We were desperate for the world to hear and help us. I had been frantically tweeting images and videos of destruction from eastern Aleppo. — NYT

ISIS forces have retaken the ancient city of Palmyra in Syria, according to Syrian government media, the ISIS media wing and a human rights monitor. [...]

ISIS first seized control of Palmyra, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, in May 2015. Syrian government forces recaptured it in March this year. [...]

ISIS demolished many of the city's ancient treasures, including the 1,800-year-old Arch of Triumph and the nearly 2,000-year-old Temple of Baalshamin, as well as the Temple of Bel. — CNN

Turkey’s president looks at northern Syria and sees what others don’t: a massive real estate project.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose army is attempting to clear 5,000 square kilometers in northern Syria of Islamic State, talks about building entire cities when his soldiers’ work is done. In regular addresses, he describes a future in which refugees return home to Turkish-built apartment blocks supplemented by Turkish-built schools and social facilities. — Bloomberg

A recreation of Palmyra’s Arch of Triumph was unveiled in New York on Monday, almost a year after Islamic State militants destroyed the original structure.

The 1,800-year-old Roman arch was blown up by the extremist group last October, but a team of archeologists at Oxford University’s Institute for Digital archeology (IDA) set about recreating it, in an act of resistance to Isis’s rampant acts of cultural destruction in Iraq and Syria. — the Guardian

In ‘A World of Fragile Parts’, La Biennale di Venezia and the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) explore the threats facing the preservation of global heritage sites and how the production of copies can aid in the preservation of cultural artifacts.

Ecological uncertainty, violent attacks, and the increasing demands of tourism are just a few of the factors putting global heritage sites and cultural artifacts at risk of destruction and loss. — #NEWPALMYRA

Sweden, once one of the most welcoming countries for refugees, on Tuesday introduced tough new restrictions on asylum seekers, including rules that would limit the number of people granted permanent residency and make it more difficult for parents to reunite with their children.

The government said the legislation... was necessary to prevent the country from becoming overstretched by the surge of migration to Europe that began last year. — the New York Times

Is planning still important in a city that's been razed to the ground by civil war? Syrian architect Marwa Al-Sabouni thinks so. She describes life in the city of Homs, which has sustained massive destruction during the Syrian war, and reveals what she'd like it to look like in the future. — abc.net.au

Squalid, chaotic, overwhelmed: Piraeus is the first port of call for the thousands now trapped in the capital, on the frontline of Europe’s refugee crisis. Since the closure of Greece’s northern border and with it the Balkan migrant trail – a move that has resulted in more than 46,000 stranded on the Greek mainland – it has been emblematic of the country’s inability to cope with a situation few had envisaged. — The Guardian

A monumental recreation of the destroyed Arch of Triumph in Palmyra, Syria, has been unveiled in London’s Trafalgar Square.

The 1,800-year-old arch was destroyed by Islamic State militants last October and the 6-metre (20ft) model, made in Italy from Egyptian marble, is intended as an act of defiance: to show that restoration of the ancient site is possible if the will is there. — theguardian.com

As the Two-Way reported on Sunday, the Syrian government says its forces have retaken the desert city of Palmyra, in the center of Syria.

The self-declared Islamic State seized the city in May of last year — and soon unleashed a wave of destruction on its defenders, inhabitants and archaeological treasures. — npr.org