The eighth wonder of the ancient world The Pantheon in Rome is a true architectural wonder. Described as the “sphinx of the Campus Martius”—referring to enigmas presented by its appearance and history, and to the location in Rome where it was built—to visit it today is to be almost transported back to the Roman Empire […]
There is only one true way to experience Petra—the greatest city of the Nabataeans, a people who occupied the area from Sinai and Negev to northern Arabia in the west and as far north as southern Syria. On foot or mounted on a camel, one should leave the modern village of Wadi Musa in modern-day […]
Modern architecture is the school of design that prevailed since the turn of the 20th century till World War II. The horrendous war altered the kind of buildings needed in the post-war era. People needed practicality and functionality more than ever to rebuild—from scratch—the entire cities that were demolished at the time. The dominant Beaux-Arts […]
Here in Berlin, Germany’s Bauhaus Archiv is throwing a farewell party. Next year this museum will close for renovation, and until then it’s presenting a display of ‘greatest hits’ from the world’s biggest Bauhaus collection. From furniture and posters to crockery and cutlery, these exquisite objects show how the Bauhaus school shaped our idea of […]
We see ancient edifices around the globe, like thе pyramids in Egypt, Borobudur in Indonesia, and the Pyramid of the Sun in the Valley of Mexico, and we ask ourselves, how? How could mankind, so far back in time, build such enormous structures? And all without the advanced technology we enjoy today. Furthermore, when one looks […]
Somewhere between Ballydehob and Skibbereen, the G.P.S. directed me down a narrow country road toward an indentation in the southwestern Irish coast called Roaringwater Bay. The castle I was looking for had been one of the last to fall to the English, in the early 1600s, in a coda to the historic Battle of Kinsale, […]
The secret to Alexandria, if classical historians are to be believed, lies in a golden casket. Studded with jewels and small enough to hold in one’s hands, the casket was a war trophy found in the lodgings of vanquished Persian king Darius III more than 2,300 years ago. The man who defeated Darius, Alexander the […]
On 21 February, the George Sturges house in Brentwood, California, was put on the block at Los Angeles Modern Auctions (LAMA). It is the only example of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Usonian style in a city that boasts four of his earlier, textile block-style houses. Built in 1939, around the time ofFallingwater, it was owned in […]