There are dozens of Frank Lloyd Wright houses across the country that fans of the architect can visit. There are a handful that can be rented. There is only one where you can sleep overnight for $148, which includes a personal guided tour by the 90-year-old owner and breakfast in a Wright-designed “great room.”

The Cooke House in Virginia Beach, Va., built in 1959, is one of Wright’s last commissioned works. — The New York Times

On Friday, President Obama formally [declared] the Greenwich Village bar and its surrounding area the Stonewall National Monument, and creating the first National Park Service unit dedicated to the gay rights movement.

According to the White House, the monument designation will consist of 7.7 acres, protecting the tavern, Christopher Park across the street, and several other streets and sidewalks where spontaneous protests were held for equal rights in 1969. — The New York Times

virtually all of downtown’s brokers and landlords had clamored to attract the tech giant. Only a handful of locations were said to be seriously in the running, all historic sites on Broadway.

“Apple is known to do things that are outside-of-the-box and unorthodox,” said broker Gabe Kadosh of Colliers International. “It creates a bigger splash by going in a historic building.” [...]

“When it becomes fully known, the pricing is going to skyrocket,” said Kadosh. — labusinessjournal.com

A recently completed restoration project [of Spain's Matrera Castle] has provoked an incredulous reaction from some locals and a Spanish conservation group...

However, Carlos Quevedo, the architect who oversaw the restoration of the castle...pointed out that the project had been painstaking, professional, and legal...'I do think that some basic, accurate information can help avoid some of the prejudices that spring from a simple image.' — The Guardian

“What I realized is that they have very little power,” Mr. Viet, 28, said of his fellow urban planners. “The fates of the buildings were being decided by someone else.”

[...] when Ho Chi Minh City’s property market perked up after a slump that followed the 2008 financial crisis, dozens of prewar buildings — spanning the colonial to modernist eras — were razed to make room for new ones. As the city’s modest skyline grows, residents are watching with a mixture of awe and trepidation. — nytimes.com

It is fervently hoped that when the 45th president takes the oath of office outside the Capitol on 20 January 2017, a $60m project to restore the building’s august cast-iron dome will have been completed. [...]

“There’s never been a major renovation of the dome. It’s important work and was long overdue. It apparently has a thousand cracks and pieces have been falling off for years but, once this work is done, it should be good for another 150 years. — theguardian.com

The company promised to “faithfully reproduce” several beloved artifacts in the lobby, including wall tapestries, paper lanterns and sliding doors, the lacquered furnishings and map of time zones...But those plans have done little to assuage the concerns of preservationists, many of whom contend that Tokyo is destroying its greatest postwar architectural assets to accommodate the 2020 Olympics and a recent surge in tourism. — The New York Times

While some residents may be more concerned about their overflowing rubbish bins than maintaining ancient monuments, for many the survival of modern Rome will depend on the preservation of the past. — The Guardian

Concern is growing over the threat to the Roman antiquities of Sabratha after Isil supporters temporarily occupied the Libyan town. [...]

After the recent destruction of antiquities by Isil extremists in Iraq (Mosul, Nineveh, Nimrud and Hatra) and Syria (Palmyra), there is great concern about Libya. Sabratha, a Unesco World Heritage Site, was a Phoenician trading centre in the fifth-century BC and later became an important Roman port. — theartnewspaper.com

That’s why a team from the Institute for Digital Archaeology (IDA) is turning to the next best option—using technology to protect cultural heritage.

Founded in 2012 by Roger Michel, IDA is a joint effort between Harvard University and Oxford University to create an open-source database of high-resolution images and three-dimensional graphics of things like paper and papyrus documents, epigraphs and small artifacts.

Work on what IDA has named the Million Image Database began in early 2015. — newsweek.com

The ruins of a 16th century church have emerged from the waters of a reservoir in Mexico.

The water level in the Nezahualcóyotl reservoir in Chiapas state has dropped by 25m (82ft) because of a drought in the area. The church, known as the Temple of Santiago or the Temple of Quechula, has been under nearly 100ft of water since 1966.

The church, which is believed to have been built by Spanish colonists, is 183ft long and 42ft wide, with a bell tower that rises 48ft above the ground. — the Guardian

Islamic State militants in northern Syria have blown up another monument in the ancient city of Palmyra, officials and local sources say.

The Arch of Triumph was "pulverised" by the militants who control the city, a Palmyra activist told AFP news agency.

It is thought to have been built about 2,000 years ago.

IS fighters have already destroyed two ancient temples at the site, described by Unesco as one of the most important cultural centres of the ancient world. — bbc.com