This is a tale of two new West Loop high-rises and what they say about Chicago's apartment building boom, which has restored construction cranes to the skyline but has yet to give us architecture with a capital "A."

The buildings — the underwhelming Arkadia Tower in Greektown and the better-than-average JeffJack Apartments west of Union Station — are the latest products of the construction surge [...]. — chicagotribune.com

A state senator on Monday expressed his concerns about Apple’s policy of not hiring construction workers with past felony convictions at the tech giant’s new campus... Union leaders told The Chronicle that several workers suddenly lost their jobs building Apple’s new campus in January because they had past felony convictions. [State Sen. Mark] Leno called the situation “equally surprising and disturbing...” — SF Gate

The architect David Chipperfield is at the centre of an extraordinary row over Milan’s new €60m (£44m) Museum of Culture, a building he has designed and now disowned after accusing officials of skimping on flooring materials.

The resulting “floor war” – as locals have dubbed the stand off – has led the British architect, famous for the Neues Museum in Berlin and China’s Liangzhu Culture Museum, to demand that his name be removed from the project. — independent.co.uk

Work was halted on a luxury-condominium tower in midtown Manhattan after an 8-foot piece of guardrail from a construction elevator fell from the 81st floor to the street below.

The New York City Department of Buildings ordered all work stopped at 432 Park Ave., the 1,397-foot tower being built by Harry Macklowe and CIM Group [...].

The building, slated for completion this year, is one of the tallest residential tower in the Western Hemisphere, according to the property's website. — crainsnewyork.com

The world’s tallest proposed modular tower may actually reach its full potential.

Developer Bruce Ratner has finally resumed work on his 32-story residential building next to the Barclays Center after a five-month hiatus stemming from a dispute with construction giant Skanska over the pre-fabricated design.

As a result of that legal fight, Ratner gained control of Skanska’s factory in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, where modules for the proposed tallest modular tower were made. — nydailynews.com

On Wednesday, developer Richard L. Friedman will formally kick off construction of the tallest skyscraper to be built in Boston in 40 years — a 700-foot tower at 1 Dalton St. that will include the city’s second Four Seasons Hotel and some of its most expensive condominiums. [...]

The skyscraper at One Dalton is being designed by Hancock Tower architect Harry N. Cobb, of Pei Cobb Freed & Partners, in collaboration with Gary Johnson of Cambridge Seven Associates Inc. — bostonglobe.com

The elevator doors snap shut behind Otto Solis and his fellow ironworkers. With a quick shudder, gears kick in for a rattling 90-second ascent through the concrete structure rising at the corner of Wilshire Boulevard and Figueroa Street in downtown Los Angeles.

The men huddle in the confined space. Wearing hard hats, bandannas, kneepads and gloves, they look like gladiators ready to fight. — latimes.com

The suit charges that Google and senior executives stole Eli Attia's invention, which is a technology that shortens and makes significantly cheaper the design and construction process, mainly for high-rise and large buildings. Google estimates that the invention has potential revenue of $120 billion annually. — globes.co.il

The plans call for nothing less than the rebirth of the Prussian-era heart of Berlin. A new palace is currently under construction on the German capital's famous Museum Island to replace the Berlin City Palace, or Stadtschloss, the erstwhile residence of Prussian kings and German emperors that was demolished by the communists soon after the end of World War II. [...]

But completion of the exterior may be in doubt. — spiegel.de

The Second Avenue Subway is the stuff of legend in New York City, the locomotive who cried wolf. Plagued by funding shortages, the project has been stop-and-go since the 1920s. Now construction is back to go; in late September, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) [...] requested $1.5 billion [...]. Michael Horodniceanu, head of construction for the MTA, has stated that the long-awaited line may be ready by 2029. In the meantime, the MTA is learning about, and acting on, geology. — cafe.com

When we last checked in with Eli Broad’s eponymous downtown museum, its fall 2014 debut had been pushed back to some time in 2015. Today it was announced that the institution will open in fall 2015, although no precise date was given. [...]

The multi-story building, designed Diller Scofidio + Renfro, is still in the midst of construction. When it opens it will join two MOCA facilities and the Japanese American National Museum, making the northern end of downtown something of a museum hub. — lamag.com

Depicting the Sancaklar Mosque, commissioned by Sancaklar Foundation and designed by EAA -- Emre Arolat Architects, this film is a semi-documentary salute to this distinguished example of modern architecture, which stands out among Turkey's Islamic places of worship dominated by historicist building typologies.

Damningly described as ‘hell on wheels’, ‘malice in blunderland’, and ‘a field of dreams’; welcome to a run-down of some of the world’s most eye-wateringly over-budget projects. — Podio.com