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The Crystal Palace was not only a marvel of Victorian ingenuity but also a symbol of Britain’s embrace of industrial progress and modernity, reflecting the nation’s aspirations on the world stage — The Guardian
The Guardian reports that the mystery of how the Crystal Palace was built in just 190 days has been solved, crediting the success to a highly innovative building process. Joseph Paxton, the architect, employed a modular design using prefabricated iron and glass components, which were mass-produced... View full entry
A shimmering monolith seemed to appear in the Nevada desert this week, captivating the imaginations of hundreds of thousands and spurring news reports in the U.S. and abroad.
But the object may have been there for years.
According to Monolith Tracker, an online community that maintains a map of monolith appearances across the globe, the monolith spotted by the Metropolitan Police Department over the weekend was first identified in December 2020.
— Las Vegas Review-Journal
Whoever did place the eerily Kubrick-esque mirrored 77-inch-tall object did so deliberately at Gass Peak, one of the highest points in the massive Desert National Wildlife Refuge north of Las Vegas. The police removed it on Thursday without naming a culprit. (I think it resembles the original... View full entry
“It’s been fifty years since Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s death and the details of his international career have been carefully archived. But a mysterious painting has surfaced that reveals what may be an early version of his master plan in Newark” — JerseyDigs
The supposed painting depicts what could have been a disastrous expansion of the footprint of van der Rohe’s iconic 1960 apartment complex. Courtesy of Newark Public Library Digital Collections His Colonnade Apartments are perhaps the foremost example of the “Towers in the Park” typology... View full entry
The piece was completed last Friday and it consists of a single, diminutive swimming pool located somewhere in the southern Mojave Desert between Joshua Tree and Apple Valley. The public is allowed to use the pool, but in order to do so visitors need the key that unlocks it (it is kept covered) as well as the GPS coordinates. Only once you have the key, which is kept at the MAK Center, are you given the coordinates. — latimes.com