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The cross-border Israeli military confrontation with Hezbollah has induced UNESCO to take drastic action by declaring 34 cultural properties in Lebanon to be under provisional enhanced protection, according to a new announcement from the UNESCO Committee for the Protection of Cultural... View full entry
Ahead of its January 2025 release of the World Monuments Watch list, the World Monuments Fund has announced the greatest factors threatening heritage sites globally are conflict, climate change, "overtourism," a lack of financial support and community engagement, and an extenuating state of... View full entry
In the third year of this epochal war — which has destroyed some 210,000 buildings, according to a recent New York Times investigation — Russian forces continue to target civilian habitations in contravention of international law. When the city is a battleground, architecture becomes an act of defense and defiance. — The New York Times
Writing for the New York Times, critic Jason Farago deconstructs ‘Constructing Hope: Ukraine’ for its opening at the Center for Architecture. War always produces a kind of necessary architecture, but, he argues, the difference in this conflict is an all-hands (including busy techno djs)... View full entry
How might this destruction be stopped? International law remains one of the only paths to seek accountability. And it is not only lawyers who make its systems function. Through their stewardship of the built environment (including long-standing engagement with the right to housing and the politics of climate change), architects, planners, and preservationists can shed light on the techniques, procedures, and consequences of modern urban warfare. They also have the potential to change them. — The Architectural League of New York
Berlin-based Palestinian urbanist and scholar Natasha Aruri, formerly of the TU Berlin, breaks down the concept of ‘domicide’ with MIT's Balakrishnan Rajagopal and SITU founding partner Brad Samuels. The term can be traced to the 2001 title Domicide: The Global Destruction of Home, but has... View full entry
A new report on the socio-economic situation in Gaza from the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) has established a baseline for rebuilding as a cease-fire deal that would end the seven-month Israel-Hamas war continues to be up in the air. The findings lay out the most realistic timeline for... View full entry
Various Ukrainian news outlets are reporting the recent near-total destruction of the Mykhailo Boichuk State Academy of Decorative and Applied Arts and Design in Kyiv from a Russian missile attack in the morning hours of Monday, March 25th. "During this morning's attack on Kyiv, as a result of... View full entry
Over 60% of the buildings in Gaza have been destroyed. But it's also the heritage, the culture, the collective memory. So it's important for us to rethink how to rebuild, how to accommodate one of the highest densely populated spots on Earth. Do we go vertical? Do we go horizontal? You've got an urban fabric. You've got a coastal fabric. You've got a rural fabric. Each one requires a different way of looking at it. — NPR
Yara Sharif is the London-based co-founder of the group Architects for Gaza. The Palestinian architect tells NPR the task now is to assemble a society literally of the rubble using the remnants of some 200,000 buildings that have been destroyed and in the most environmentally sensitive ways... View full entry
The historic center of the Ukrainian port city of Odesa and sites in Yemen and Lebanon were added to the World Heritage List Wednesday by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). All three sites were simultaneously added to UNESCO’s List of World Heritage in Danger.
The statement said that the decision would give Ukraine access to “technical and financial international assistance” to protect and rehabilitate the city center.
— CNN
Both the Yemeni site and, of course, Odesa were placed under the category in response to the ongoing conflicts afflicting both countries. The latter being of constant "grave concern” to the UN’s cultural body since its inception 11 months ago. The third site, Rachid Karami International... View full entry
Attitudes towards Soviet-era architectural heritage are divided in Ukraine. Some value the country’s modernist, post-modernist and brutalist buildings for their sharpness and conciseness of form, for their functionality and concrete simplicity. But for others they stand as an unwanted reminder of Ukraine’s Soviet past, and much of this built heritage has come under threat in recent years. — Al Jazeera
Ukraine’s pre-WWII cultural infrastructure has been a focus of the press and comprises the vast majority of listed buildings in Ukraine’s state database. Examples of Soviet-era architecture are, however, systemically less protected. Their plight is being well-documented by social media... View full entry
Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, has ordered officials to speed up the construction of a cultural centre in Sevastopol, the historic naval capital of Crimea, which will include exhibition space for the State Hermitage Museum, the State Russian Museum and the State Tretyakov Gallery.
Russia annexed the Black Sea peninsula from Ukraine in 2014. In May this year, Putin inaugurated a $7.5bn bridge to link the Crimean city of Kerch with the Russian mainland.
— The Art Newspaper
Outside a few rare examples such as Ronchamp, I sense that Modernism has failed to deliver an architecture that connects with most Catholics and other traditional Christians. Much of this has to do with fact that Modernism as a cultural movement is inherently atheistic as it is based on a secular materialist philosophy. — newgeography.com
