Jeff Bezos has been quietly jetting into Washington over the past few years, becoming quite the hobnobber around town [...]. Soon, Washingtonians may see even more of him. In 2016, the Amazon founder and Washington Post owner paid $23 million in cash for the former Textile Museum in Kalorama (yes, his neighbors are the Obamas and Kushner-Trumps). At 27,000 square feet, the mansion was already the biggest home in Washington before he began a $12 million renovation and expansion last year.  — Washingtonian

The destruction of Syria’s heritage over the past eight years is the subject of a significant show due to open at the Museum of Islamic Art (MIA) in Doha later this year. The exhibition, entitled Syria Matters (opens 23 November), aims to explore the country’s centuries-old “extraordinary cultural heritage” against the backdrop of the raging conflict that has seen the destruction of six Unesco world heritage sites under President Bashar al-Assad. — The Art Newspaper

Venice is doomed, says, Salvatore Settis, unless there is a moral revival in Italy. He is a professor of archaeology who has been an advisor on cultural matters to the Italian government and was head of the Getty Center for the Arts and the Humanities in the 1990s. Italians know him from his eloquent denunciations in the press, which say that everything that has made La Bella Italia so beautiful is going to hell in a handcart. — The Art Newspaper

In what’s being hailed as a “major breakthrough” in Maya archaeology, researchers have identified the ruins of more than 60,000 houses, palaces, elevated highways, and other human-made features that have been hidden for centuries under the jungles of northern Guatemala.

Using a revolutionary technology known as LiDAR (short for “Light Detection And Ranging”), scholars digitally removed the tree canopy from aerial images of the now-unpopulated landscape [...] — National Geographic

Much of the magnificent 3,000-year-old temple of Ain Dara, with its mysterious and massive footprints and a structure that provides clues for understanding the biblical temple of Solomon in Jerusalem, has been destroyed in a Turkish airstrike. [...]

Photos and video from the Syrian Observatory and Hawar News confirm that more than half of the temple is gone, including many of the sculptures that ringed the site. — National Geographic

Long before foam insulation and concrete tower blocks, humans were finding ingenious ways to address their needs through architecture. Using local materials and inherited construction techniques, societies have ensured that buildings provide protection and comfort. In Tonga, traditional curved roofs offered aerodynamic protection against storms and cyclones. In the Uros islands of Lake Titicaca in the Andes, reeds were used in houses due to the insulating properties of their hollow stems. — cnn.com

Brand Barcelona’s comeback begins with a contribution from its heaviest hitter: Antoni Gaudí. Almost a century after his death, the architect of La Sagrada Familia is still synonymous with the city. On 16 November, Gaudí’s first house, Casa Vicens, begun in 1883, will open permanently to the public for the first time. — The Guardian

Once the renovation is complete, the four-storey building will be used as a venue for art exhibitions, installations and seminars that will be open to the public, as well as a philanthropic institution to help vulnerable people including refugees...any old material removed from the building will have to be taken away in barges along Venice’s canals, while new material will have to be brought in the same way. — The Telegraph

The restoration aims not only to clean and maintain the structure, but also to offer an insight into what the cathedral would have looked like in the 13th century. Its interior was designed to be a radiant vision, as close to heaven on earth as a pilgrim might come, although many modern visitors have responded more with shock than with awe. The architecture critic Martin Filler has described the project as a “scandalous desecration of a cultural holy place.” — The New York Times

"Over the last 20 years, the [Nanjing] government has made real efforts to establish national laws, local laws and regulations so we can pursue this work," [architect Zhou Qi] said, of his optimism for the city's heritage preservation efforts. "It has just become common sense." — CNN

A major Roman settlement discovered south of Lyon in France is the “most exceptional excavation of a Roman site in 40 or 50 years”, says the chief archaeologist working on the project. Benjamin Clément, who works for the Swiss conservation company Archeodunum, is leading a team of 15 archaeologists at the dig in Saint Colombe, a small town near the city of Vienne. — The Art Newspaper