On May 4, 2007, a tornado tore through Greensburg, Kansas, wreaking almost complete destruction of this 1,574-person town located two hours west of Wichita. Measuring EF-5 in intensity, indicating wind speeds of more than 200 miles per hour, the twister swept up Greensburg’s main commercial street, leaving nothing standing in its wake but for one corner bank. Reports tallied nine deaths from the storm, as well as property damage in excess of $150 million. The site of Greensburg’s former hospital, photographed by Greensburg native Larry Schwarm the day after the tornado hit. Photo © Larry Schwarm As early as the

Following the resignation of architect Patricia Lancaster as New York City’s Department of Buildings commissioner, Mayor Michael Bloomberg is mulling whether or not to drop the requirement that the commissioner be a registered architect or engineer, The New York Times reported on April 23. Lancaster stepped down this week in the wake of several recent construction accidents, including a deadly crane collapse in March at a high-rise whose construction Lancaster later admitted should never have been approved. Until this string of disasters, which has left 13 people dead this year (already more than all of 2007), Lancaster had been viewed

The Turks and Caicos Islands, a British commonwealth of roughly 30 islands in the Caribbean, occupy a small piece of paradise. The isle of Dellis Cay, for instance, is a sanctuary for local sea birds that live there year-round and an important stopover for migratory birds that fly across its miles of sandy beaches. But the flamingos and herons are getting some human neighbors in a development dubbed The O Property Collection: pricey residences by a flock of big-name architects including Shigeru Ban, Kengo Kuma, and Zaha Hadid. For many observers, the project raises troubling questions about sustainability. Image courtesy

Developers and officials in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are enlisting renowned museums, including the Louvre and the Guggenheim, as well as top architects such as Frank Gehry and Jean Nouvel, to build cultural facilities in Abu Dhabi and Dubai. But citing what it describes as the UAE’s poor record on preventing abusive labor conditions, the international advocacy group Human Rights Watch (HRW) has made several appeals for these cultural institutions to assure fair worker treatment. So far, it hasn’t received any pledges. “We’ve had some vague responses, but they’ve been noncommittal and don’t address the basic issues of labor

Nader Khalili, an Earth Architect and teacher known for his innovative work with adobe, died on March 5 of congestive heart failure.

Tel Aviv’s “White City,” an unparalleled collection of 4,000 International Style buildings recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, now has a Bauhaus Museum to display Bauhaus-designed furnishings and related objects. The first exhibition, opening April 25, includes original furniture, graphics, lamps, and glass and ceramic ware, by Mies van der Rohe, Marcel Breuer, Christian Bell, Wilhelm Wagenfeld, and others. Photos © Esther Hecht Tel Aviv’s new Bauhaus Museum is located in the White City, a collection of 1930s-era International Style buildings designated a UNESCO World Heritage site (top).  The museum’s first show features furniture and other objects designed by

Reports that the operators of Paris’s Eiffel Tower were planning a dramatic, temporary addition to the structure proved to be tall tales. The UK’s Guardian newspaper, Architect magazine, The New York Times, and others wrote in March that a design by the French firm Serero Architects had won a competition to redesign the 905-foot-tall structure’s uppermost public viewing platform in time for its 120th anniversary in 2009. Serero unveiled renderings of a clover-shaped cantilevered platform that could be “bolted onto the tower using a web of Kevlar” temporarily, the Guardian wrote. But according to an April 15 New York Times

In Palm Springs, California, it’s 1956 again: Real estate developer Maxx Livingstone is replicating the decades-old residential designs of William Krisel, AIA. During the 1950s, the architect and his former partner Dan Palmer worked with Alexander Construction to build 2,500 post-and-beam tract houses. That collaboration doubled the city’s size and produced weekend-getaway residences that helped define its accessible, Modernist identity. Robert Parker, director of Prudential Palm Springs’s architectural division, says that a growing number of purchasers are restoring these so-called “Alexander homes” to their original look—and that authentic examples are withstanding downward-facing sales trends. “The real estate market obviously has