What’s old is new, what’s new is old. Eight of architect Frank Lloyd Wright’s idiosyncratic modern buildings have been added to the UNESCO World Heritage List, the international preservation organization announced on Sunday.
NASA’s Nerve Center Gets a Lift
The Apollo Mission Control Center is back in all its midcentury glory following a comprehensive restoration project.
The Iron Is Hot at the Smithsonian
The most abundant element on earth, iron played a key role in early human agricultural, military, and religious development, and in Africa, where smelting and forging can be traced back to the sixth century BC, it still forms an important part of indigenous culture in many Sub-Saharan countries.
Volcanic Activity at the Getty Villa
Known for being home to treasures of the ancient world, the Getty Villa is itself modeled on one: the Villa dei Papiri in Herculaneum. The institution is mounting a collaborative exhibition this summer focusing on those Roman roots.
The Golden Spike and Powerful Pics at the Crocker
Andrew Russell’s “East and West Shaking Hands” is the most famous transcontinental rail photo, but Alfred Hart’s stereograph captures the moment.
Saving Cradles of the Civil Rights Movement
At about the midway point between Selma and Montgomery, in White Hall, Alabama, a one-story cottage—hardly more than a shack—squats on cinder blocks.
When an Icon Burns
Some thoughts on Notre Dame Cathedral, which caught fire Monday.
Art Deco in the Toddlin’ Town
Art Deco Chicago: Designing Modern America, distributed for the Chicago Art Deco Society by Yale University Press, provides an occasion for examining the city’s art deco history. Through five scholarly essays and 101 notable objects and buildings, Art Deco Chicago reevaluates art deco’s and Chicago’s cultural and economic contributions to the United States during the Machine Age.
Ring Master: Tolkien at the Morgan Library
Before writing The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, J. R. R. Tolkien had been hired by Oxford and Leeds Universities to teach philology, the study of languages. The attention he paid to words was at the heart of his creative process, which goes under the microscope this winter at the Morgan Library and Museum in Tolkien: Maker of Middle-Earth.
Agra Culture
Today, the World Monuments Fund announced the completion of four years’ conservation work on two gardens in Agra, India.