Their original goal was to create a paint that would effectively reflect sunlight away from a building, which required producing an extremely white pigment. - Hyperallergic
Each year, an online architecture magazine offers a list of 80-odd edifices from which readers can vote for the ten ugliest buildings in China. What's the purpose? "To provoke thinking about the beauty of and ugliness of architecture and promote architects' social responsibility." - The Guardian
Those solid, 850-year-old walls were damaged much more by the catastrophic 2019 fire than authorities realized at first. (They really could have collapsed.) Now that they're stabilized, rebuilding can begin — and could possibly be finished in time for the 2024 Olympics. - Artnet
Sebastian Smee: "Wrapping a triumphal arch is a way of creating something beautiful that also says: Enough with your delusions of grandeur. Away with your nationalist rhetoric, your dreams of world conquest. Away with all lies."Â - Washington Post
The proposed 22-story glass-skinned office tower would create its own bubble-like world with garden levels open to the elements on the 10th and 17th floors and an enclosed landscaped rooftop with a restaurant, all served by a funicular tram traveling up and down the sides. - Los Angeles Times
The artist says, "One of the hardest things to do when you're a graffiti artist is to scale up." An unused Boeing 777? That's definitely a bit larger than some street canvases. - BBC
The Syrian refugee children, presented with analogue cameras and film, "burst out laughing and say: 'These are cameras from my parents’ time.' ... But, when they start using them, something magical happens." - The Guardian (UK)
After an outcry, the NYPL says its Picture Collection will remain accessible to the public - still browsable, still circulating. The collection "has been used by theater and movie production designers, cartoonists and illustrators, and artists. Among its eminent devotees were Andy Warhol and Joseph Cornell." - The New York Times
Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris: "Christo overwhelms us, prods us, makes us talk. ... He plays with light, with the Paris sky that reverberates through his ephemeral work." - The New York Times
"At times, the radical optimism of Zuccotti Park seems like a distant planet. Other times, it seems like we broke the ice to a growing consciousness that the status quo is not going to work." - Hyperallergic
The two-cave system is nestled within a 43-acre stretch of land in Missouri, about 60 miles west of St. Louis. Scholars have called it “the most important rock art site in North America” because of a collection of 290 prehistoric glyphs on its walls. - Hyperallergic
The artwork was part of a 2016 project to place murals around the campus. Two years later, the Wilshire Community Coalition, a group led by Korean Americans, spoke out against the sun rays that prominently radiated from Ava Gardner’s profile. - Los Angeles Times
"Study for 'Worn Out,' as the drawing is being called, has lived in a private Dutch collection since the first decade of the 20th century. Its current owner … approached the museum to determine if it was a legitimate van Gogh." - Artnet
