Docomomo US would like to send some positive spirit and honor the graduating class of 2020 by offering all recent graduates one free year of membership.

The Iconic Houses Network has just launched Icons at Risk, a new international initiative to preserve the world’s most endangered architecturally important modern houses.

Willert Park Courts is significant culturally, historically, socially and architecturally as the first housing complex for African Americans in Buffalo and as an early International Style design, but its demolition has been in the works for many years under the ownership of the Buffalo Municipal Housing Authority.

In keeping with our latest Regional Spotlight, Making Houston Modern, here are some modern Houston homes on the market that we would love to see find a sympathetic buyer. 

When Howard Barnstone landed in Texas in 1948, fresh out of Yale, it seemed as if he and Gertrude Levy were fated to meet in Houston’s contemporary art scene. With a job offer to teach at the new University of Houston architecture school, Howard moved to town and settled in. That was the opening scene in the marriage play starring Gertrude Levy and Howard Barnstone.

A number of important Houston Jewish families were drawn to Braeswood in its first decades, including the Gordons, Rauches, Brochsteins, Battelsteins, and Kaufmans, and they often employed Jewish architects such as Joseph Finger, Irving Klein, and Lenard Gabert, as well as Barnstone, to design their houses.

Barnstone’s office produced multiple schemes for the proposed Menil art center, which would house art storage primarily, along with offices, a conference room, and a small public gallery. The program grew to include a library for 3,700 volumes of “spiritual and philosophical” books, a workshop, and a small theater.

During the English architectural critic Reyner Banham’s last visit to Houston, to write about the Menil Collection by Renzo Piano (with Richard Fitzgerald, 1986), he observed the interrelationships among three generations of architects--Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Philip Johnson, and Howard Barnstone--who all left an indelible mark on modern architecture in Houston.

Complex, controversial, and prolific, Howard Barnstone was a central figure in the world of twentieth-century modern architecture. Recognized as Houston’s foremost modern architect in the 1950s, Barnstone came to prominence for his designs with partner Preston M. Bolton, which transposed the rigorous and austere architectural practices of Mies van der Rohe to the hot, steamy coastal plain of Texas. Barnstone was a man of contradictions—charming and witty but also self-centered, caustic and abusive—who shaped new settings that were imbued, at once, with spatial calm and emotional intensity.

This Sphinx-like bank in San Jose is under threat as part of a redevelopment plan for the area. It was designed by Cesar Pelli during his time at Gruen Associates.

We've tailored the 2020 summer reading list to suit the (crazy, historic, revolutionary) times we are living in. What relevant lessons do architecture and the Modern Movement hold for the current day? You'll have to read on to find out.

At this time of profound sorrow and frustration over the murder of George Floyd, Docomomo US honors the call put forth by the National Organization of Minority Architects (NOMA), “to condemn racism and take an active role in eliminating the racial biases that account for a myriad of social, economic, and health disparities, and most importantly, result in the loss of human lives."

The former Federal Mogul Staff Office Building has been unoccupied since 2015. Earlier this year, the auto supplier company Marelli announced plans to move its headquarters to the international-style site, designed by architect Louis Rossetti, a protege of Albert Kahn. As part of the move, Marelli plans to spend millions of dollars renovating the building, including replacing the façade with a non-descript glass wall and removing the geometric columns encasing the original portion of the structure.

This past spring has seen historic amounts of rain in the Midwest, and the impact has been felt on many significant modern sites. 

The Mississippi Heritage Trust has been advocating for a preservation solution for the Sun-n-Sand Motel for over 15 years. The following excerpts, from the Spring issue of Elevation, the Journal of the Mississippi Heritage Trust, illustrate the preservation battle from a variety of perspectives.

Nestled within a bevy of towering trees on a quiet street in the heart of Jackson, Mississippi sits one of our state’s most meticulously preserved modern gems, the Falk House. Homeowner John Hooks recalls discovering the house when he was a mere 19 years old. “I remember thinking the place was mysterious and unique,” he remembers. “The house has an energy that’s very special, very powerful.”

If buildings today were designed following visionary Mississippi builder and designer Carroll Ishee’s principles, we would have more interesting communities that respected the natural environment instead of wreaking havoc on this limited resource. Ishee is said to have built over 150 buildings, most of which were houses, along the Mississippi Gulf Coast. He tackled tricky terrain and conquered challenging sites others deemed unbuildable. His love for nature is visible in his work which was designed using sustainable principles and crafted with natural materials long before “green” was the norm.

The iconic images created by photographers of the mid-20th century have forever shaped the way we view great works of modernism. Now Docomomo US invites you to put your own photographic imprint on modernism through the "I Spy Modernism" photo competition.

The first image that comes to mind when many Americans picture Mississippi’s landmark architecture is probably white-columned antebellum mansions built by wealthy cotton planters. But Mississippi’s historically agricultural economy boomed with new industry in the 20th century, and that gave rise to a diverse and complex architectural landscape. Jennifer Baughn, who along with Michael Fazio recently co-authored the book Buildings of Mississippi, explores some of Mississippi's modernist landmarks. 

The 1970s, two Futuro Houses, and a Louis Kahn school have made Preservation New Jersey's annual 10 Most Endangered Places list.