The Spy Who Shared My Foyer
Luminaries from Agatha Christie to Walter Gropius gravitated to London’s “Lawn Road Flats.” So too did a far less conspicuous cohort: assets for the USSR.
Making Egypt’s Museums
The world’s largest archaeological museum is poised to open on the Giza Plateau, building on two centuries of museum planning and development.
Marion Mahony Griffin, Prairie School Architect
A founding member of the Prairie School, Mahony defined the movement’s now-familiar aesthetic for a global audience.
Julia Morgan, American Architect
Morgan, the first licensed woman architect in California, helped bring parity to the built environment, the community, and the profession.
How to Memorialize a Plague
Vienna's baroque Plague Column, completed in 1693, gave thanks for the survival of a city.
Casa Luis Barragán, Sacred Space of Mexican Modernism
A tour of the Mexican modernist architect Luis Barragán’s house and studio reveals a surprise with a touch of the divine.
The Crucial American Warehouse
In 19th-century America, the changing economy called for warehouses, which in turn created the warehouse districts that defined many cities.
The Scottish Sisters Who Pioneered Art Nouveau
Margaret and Frances Macdonald and their Glasgow School of Art classmates Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Harold MacNair were Art Nouveau's Glasgow Four.
Public Baths Were Meant to Uplift the Poor
In Progressive-Era New York, a now-forgotten trend of public bathhouses was introduced in order to cleanse the unwashed masses.
Could Sears Have Avoided Becoming Obsolete?
Amid a broader decline of American retail, Sears is struggling. Did changes in its business model over the course of its history doom it to failure?