St Peter's made a dramatic architectural statement when it was built, but its first incarnation as a seminary was short-lived. It is hoped this 21st Century rebirth by NVA, bringing the structure back into productive use, will prove more enduring. — BBC News

One million brilliant white tiles clad the 65m-tall precast concrete roof [...] glazed ceramic tiles need to be hand-checked, or tapped, every five years by specialist engineers, who abseil down the roof “sails” looking for changes in their sound or appearance. Now, thanks to the combined efforts of the opera house, the Getty Foundation, the University of Sydney and the engineering and design group Arup, this expensive, vertigo- inducing process is a step closer to becoming a thing of the past. — theartnewspaper.com

Harris County commissioners have chosen Houston-based Kirksey Architecture to design a project to retrofit the Astrodome by raising its floor and installing parking spaces underneath.
The $105 million project -- unveiled by county officials in September -- is the most recent attempt to secure the building's future. [...]

Many feared then that the world's first multi-purpose domed stadium for sporting events would face the wrecking ball. — Houston Chronicle

The Midtown building formerly known as Citicorp Center has just been designated a city landmark. ... The 59-story office and retail tower, designed by Hugh A. Stubbins & Associates, was completed in 1978 [and] was considered quite innovative for its time, with distinctive features that included a 45-degree angular roof and a base of four stilt-like columns. The latter allowed it to cantilever over Saint Peter’s Church, also on the site. — 6sqft

water would bubble again in Isamu Noguchi’s green marble fountain in the Ambassador Lounge, softly masking the tik-a-tik-a-tik-a-tik-a-tik chatter of a Solari di Udine split-flap display board announcing flight departures and arrivals [...]

The architects of the hotel project are Beyer Blinder Belle and Lubrano Ciavarra Architects. Beyer Blinder Belle was responsible for the sumptuous restoration of Grand Central Terminal in Midtown Manhattan. — nytimes.com

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 famed monument to love ... has for years been acquiring a yellow tinge despite a ban on coal-powered industries in the area.

Authorities have been applying "mud packs" around the side walls and towers since last year to draw the impurities out of the stone, but have not yet touched the main central dome. [...]

The mud-pack therapy involves covering the surface with fuller's earth and leaving it to dry before removing it with soft brushes and distilled water. — yahoo.com

Mr Shan Jixiang, head of the Chinese Society of Cultural Relics, said many of the selected structures tell abundant stories and are witnesses to key events in the nation's history.

He added that the new list will make people aware of the need to preserve more recent architectural sites for future generations. [...]

"Masterpieces of the 20th century prove that Chinese architects' spirit and techniques are well inherited. And they deserve to be passed on to modern times." — straitstimes.com

Protesters gathered in Sydney’s historic Rocks district on Saturday to rally against the New South Wales government’s plans to sell off the Sirius building – which contains 79 social housing tenants – to developers for more than $100m. The 1970s Brutalist building was nominated for heritage listing by the NSW National Trust in 2014 but the government has refused to grant it, saying the proceeds from the sale are needed to build more public housing elsewhere in Sydney — The Guardian

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

“Village” may not seem like the right term for a cluster of tenement-style walkups that can house more than 100,000 people. Chengzhongcun hang onto the name partly because of the familiarity evoked by the traditions and small-scale businesses that thrive among their migrant populations, and partly because when modern Shenzhen began growing, these places really were just villages in the middle of the city. — foreignpolicy.com