Minerva Parker Nichols beside the New Century Club building she designed in Philadelphia

(Re)discovering Minerva Parker Nichols, Architect

The first American woman to establish an independent architectural practice, Minerva Parker Nichols built an unprecedented career in Philadelphia.
Plans for the development of Manila by Daniel H. Burnham and Edward H. Bennett

Daniel Burnham in the Philippines

Building on his success as an architect and planner in Chicago, Daniel Burnham took American values and aesthetics to the new US colony of the Philippines.
From a 1916 advertisement for Hoosier Kitchen Cabinets

Hoosier Cabinets and the Dream of Efficiency

Out of Indiana came a beloved wooden innovation that helped change the status of the kitchen in the American home.
Ceiling of the Room of the giants in Palazzo Del Te, Mantua

Lessons in Mannerism at the Palazzo del Te

The offbeat and unexpected Palazzo del Te, designed by Giulio Romano for Federigo II Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua, has become an icon of Mannerist architecture.
Sun Yat Sen

Remembering Sun Yat Sen Abroad

Museums around the world honor the history of the revolutionary, but as Singapore’s Sun Yat Sen Nanyang Memorial Hall shows, those memories aren’t easy to read.
Paul R. Williams

Paul Revere Williams: An Architect of Firsts

The first African American architect licensed in the state of California, Williams blazed a trail to the (Hollywood) stars.
Denise Scott Brown 1978 © Lynn Gilbert

The Lasting Influence of Denise Scott Brown

Recognizing Scott Brown’s work is necessary for understanding American architecture in the second half of the twentieth century.
A diagram for Ebenezer Howard’s To-morrow, 1898

Urban Planning, Then and Now

Humans have been designing cities for millennia. California Forever is just the newest entry in a long list of planned communities around the world.
Isokon Flats, c. 1978

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.