Through six decades of assault [...] the apartment building on Upper Pansodan endured, its graceful arches and colorful patios sacrificing little of their elegance and charm to the torments of time, nature, and repression.

Then in 2013, three years into Myanmar's unprecedented political and economic opening up, the building succumbed to a force that proved too great to resist: development. — news.nationalgeographic.com

It is a cruel irony that a region so blessed with the treasures of early human civilizations is also among those most troubled by conflict. As the violence threatens to annihilate some of history's greatest monuments, we count the cost of our irreplaceable losses — edition.cnn.com

The Finnish Committee for the Restoration of the Viipuri Library with the Central City Alvar Aalto Library in Vyborg recently won the 2014 World Monuments Fund/Knoll Modernism Prize for restoring Alvar Aalto's historic Viipuri Library in Vyborg, Russia. Established in 2008, the prize is awarded biennially for an innovative architectural or design solution that has preserved or enhanced a modern landmark or group of landmarks. — bustler.net

"I know the progress is great...This is my hometown, and I love to see it grow and expand. But I’d sure hate to see Music Row not be Music Row 20 years from now" - Pat Holt, 61 — NYT

Six years ago the then-mayor launched an ambitious plan to reconstruct the lost walls, watchtowers and Ming-style homes of the city – resettling tens of thousands of residents and transforming Datong into a tourist site. Now few want to live here — theguardian.com

The steel structure looms large from Midge Cross and Scott Johnston's back porch. And from the beginning they say Architect Tom Kundig and his partners ignored land covenants meant to prevent any ridgeline buildings that would be visible from below.

"To me it was the extended third finger," said Cross. "Like, 'Up yours, Mazama, we can put this here and the heck with you guys.'" — komonews.com

Graves came out swinging. "I saw some people outside selling tomatoes," he said. "I have no idea what that meant."

He complained about his treatment in the local news media: "350 buildings, and I don't have this treatment anywhere else. . . Usually when I revisit buildings, it's to get the keys to the city. Here, there are tomatoes for sale." — oregonlive.com

Unesco, which for too long has been silent on the growing environmental threat to Venice and its evident mismanagement, as revealed by the exposure of massive corruption in the construction of its flood barriers, has at last shown its teeth. At the meeting of its World Heritage Committee in Doha this June it passed important resolutions that show that it intends to call the Italian government to account and put Venice on its World Heritage at Risk list if it is not satisfied. — theartnewspaper.com

Spanning dozens of acres, the structures provided everything the park staff and visitors would need: a gas station, restaurant, community building, maintenance shop, housing, even a two-room elementary school. The National Park Service entrusted the design to prominent architects Richard Neutra and Robert Alexander ahead of the agency’s 50th birthday, and it’s the only project of theirs still standing within the Park Service. — seattlepi.com

Every night in Tokyo, the few remaining residents of the Nakagin Capsule Tower bed down to sleep in the once-futuristic white pods they call home.

Unlike the tiny, coffin-like cabins of Japan's numerous capsule hotels, where office workers who have missed the last train can catch a few hours' sleep, the 140 units at Nakagin represent a special part of the history of architecture, and one that is worth protecting against plans to tear it down, say campaigners. — globalpost.com

Buenos Aires has not traditionally been concerned about preservation. Only a handful of buildings remain from the colonial years after the city's founding in 1536 in what is now the old San Telmo tourist district. The Parisian architecture of the early 20th century has also been shrinking because of the property boom that accompanied a renewed spurt of economic growth in the last decade until 2013. — theguardian.com

“For 10 or so of these important properties to come on the market at the same time, that matters a lot,” - Gregory J. Heym, an executive vice president and the chief economist for Halstead Property and Brown Harris Stevens — NYT