Follow this tag to curate your own personalized Activity Stream and email alerts.
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
"Using a surveying and data-collection process known as photogrammetry and a series of high-powered computer workstations, a team led by Georgios Artopoulos will create a digital model of the monument for use with virtual reality headsets or smartphones," writes the Guardian's Nate Berg about the... View full entry
Officially called the “House-Monument of the Bulgarian Communist Party”, the building fell into disrepair following the collapse of the country's socialist government in 1989, but remains a popular landmark and tourist attraction. The trip comes before an expected visit by European and Bulgarian experts at the end of 2018, who will report on the building’s structural integrity with the view of opening it officially to tourists. — The Calvert Journal
Photographer Ryan Schude's narrative panoramas are as informed by the artist's humor as they are by the structures in which they often take place. Consider "The Saturn," a typical Southern California dingbat that is transformed into a tableau of subjects wondering where they went wrong. There's... View full entry
What makes a city habitable for centuries, even millennia? This list of the twelve longest-inhabited cities compiled by the Mother Nature Network, which includes several in ISIS-plagued Syria, one in China, and one in India, unsurprisingly points toward temperate climate, relatively stable water... View full entry
For anyone returning from the Thanksgiving holiday, perhaps a fitness-inspired project could help ward off a little of that holiday indulgence. MARS Architects recently won the competition to design the headquarters for leading sports activity brand Walltopia in Sofia, Bulgaria.
Chosen out of 369 entries from 63 countries by the Foster + Partners-led jury, MARS' proposal is an 8,800 sq.m hybrid structure whose program is cleverly "folded" by an interweaving climbing atrium.
— bustler.net
Images courtesy of MARS Architects. View full entry
The argument for preserving old buildings is a very strong one that I wholeheartedly support myself. However. On the rare occasions that I get to visit a forgotten building as magnificent as this one, I can’t help day dreaming about some of the incredible monumental relics I know back home and quietly wishing that a few more of them had been left to grow old and perish naturally rather than being unceremoniously hooked up to the proverbial life support machine of modern tourism... — humanplanet.com
Photographer, Timothy Allen, explores the ruins at the Buzludzha monument in Bulgaria. View full entry