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

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

Through the free-flowing talent of Costa, Niemeyer, Burle Marx and Athos Bulcão, Brasília—the only city built in the 20th century that is listed by Unesco—has captivated the world since 1960. But the federal capital has not made Modernism sacred in the country as a whole and the protection of Modern architecture is still in its infancy. — theartnewspaper.com

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

This year's Biennale reveals that neither modernism nor contemporary architectural practice is as it seems. The best architecture today may not be revolutionary, but then today more than ever the desirability of revolutions are in doubt. Situated modernism has for many years been and continues to dominate architectural practice with the opposite of flattening results. — newrepublic.com

Each year Palm Springs dedicates a week to celebrating Midcentury Modernism architecture in the desert city. Now, it has more reason to celebrate.

The Architecture and Design Center, Edwards Harris Pavilion, is set to open Nov. 9. It will provide a place to showcase the sleek style pioneered by architects such as Richard Neutra, Donald Frey and E. Stewart Williams.

The project is an expansion of the Palm Springs Art Museum, which also is housed in a Williams building. — latimes.com

News of the planned destruction of the Hotel Okura building in Tokyo to make way for a larger 38-story glass tower has brought cries of protest in Japan and elsewhere in the world. Monocle, the wide-ranging global magazine, has started a petition to save the old Okura on behalf of “all lovers of modern Japanese architecture.” — nytimes.com

If you had walked along the beach in Venice in the early 1970s, you would have come across the sagging, crumbling, partially incinerated ghost of an old amusement park on a pier. [...]

But when it opened in July 1958, more than half a century ago, Pacific Ocean Park — or P.O.P., as it came to be known — was the thing: an amusement park that married Venice Beach's kitschy seaside carnival culture with the space-age Modern architecture of the late 1950s. — latimes.com

"The people of Glasgow and many people far beyond were horrified when a few weeks ago fire ripped through the Art School, gutting its priceless library.

The UK government has already made a £5m contribution to the Mackintosh Appeal to help ensure that the building is restored to its former glory.

And we are today making an additional £5m contribution to support the School's new Graduate and Research Centre." — UK Chancellor George Osborne — bbc.com

Ask almost any of the local architects in this Mexican border town and they will tell you Tijuana has become a hotbed of building activity.

The growing demand for designer homes, they say, is being driven primarily by Tijuana natives returning to the city...

Most of the developments in Tijuana are for upper-middle-class families ... but the spare designs and basic building materials, especially concrete, used by Mr. Medina and others make it possible for more residents to have designed homes. — nytimes.com