Barry Bergdoll, Philip Johnson Chief Curator of Architecture and Design at New York's Museum of Modern Art and professor of modern architectural history at Columbia University, will present the 62nd A.W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts Series. The Mellons are among the most prestigious art history lecture series in the world and have been delivered annually since 1952 at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. For this year's series, Bergdoll will present "Out of Site in Plain View: A History of Exhibiting Architecture since 1750."

More about the lecture series after the break...

Inspired by a childhood spent filming planes at LAX with an 8-millimeter videocamera, New York photographer and former Berkeley architecture student Jeffrey Milstein has turned his fascination for aviation into a career. Typically known for photographing the underbellies of aircrafts, Milstein's latest series captures the artistic composition and elaborate array of patterns formed by airports and only seen from above. He describes this series as revealing "the patterns, layering and complexity of cities, and the circulation patterns for travel, such as waterways, roads, and airports that grow organically over time much like a living organism."

BrickItUp is a kickstarter project, created by Jose Luis, that allows for simple and intuitive 3D modeling. Block by block, users can easily create 3D spaces and environments without any limitations. BrickItUp caters well to collaboration and allows users to work on a project live with each other. When working in groups, users are able to see what each person is working on in real-time, making distance a negligible factor in collaboration.

More on BrickItUp after the break.

Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) recently held a lecture featuring performance artist Marina Abromović alongside OMA principle Shohei Shigematsu in the anticipation of the Marina Abromović Institute for the Preservation of Performing Art (MAI) 2014 opening. In the lecture, Shigematsu speaks about the process in which they transformed a former theater in Hudson, New York, into a structure that's capable of assisting the institute's mission to develop new kinds of performance, while functioning as a space for preserving and hosting historic performance pieces. Shigematsu references OMA’s history of designing spaces that combine architecture and art, such as the Quebec National Museum and a recent collaboration with Kanye West.

More on this discussion after the break...

Prefabricated design has come to be known as a fast, green, and cost-efficient way to create buildings. Although this technique has most prominently been used with small residential structures, it’s now taken a turn towards greater, larger projects. With prefabricated towers and skyscrapers now in the works (and, in some cases, going up in as little as six days), pre-fab begs the question: is it really safe? Does quick production time lead to instability, making prefabricated buildings more likely to collapse?

Read more after the break.

1960’s Chicago: cars zooming down Lake Shore Drive, crowds heading into the Opera House, people observing artworks in the Art Institute, and Chicagoans laying around Grant Park on a sunny day. These are just a few of the scenes captured by amateur filmmaker Margaret Conneely in her film The City to See in ’63. The people, neighborhoods, and architecture of Chicago are all captured in this well-crafted 12-minute, 16mm color film taped in 1962.

Conneely captures some key architectural sites in Chicago, including the construction of Marina City. In addition, there are clips of a few buildings that no longer exist such as the Chicago Sun-Times building, demolished in 2004; White Sox Park, demolished in 1991; and the first McCormick place, wrecked in 1967.

The film also covers different neighborhoods of Chicago including Lincoln Park, Logan Square, Garfield Park, and old Maxwell Street.

As shown in the film, Chicago has always been known for its spectacular array of architecture. To see more current architectural sites in Chicago, view our Architecture City Guide: Chicago.

Roof shingles, bird cages, rusty window frames, broken lamps, fishtanks, postcards. Most people would look at this collection of items and think “garbage,” but artist Dennis Maher sees beyond this so-called "junk."

Maher, a professor of architecture at the University of Buffalo, has always been interested in how art and architecture relate to demolition, renovation, and restoration. And so, in 2009 he purchased an abandoned property from D’Youville College. 

What started as a small reconstruction project soon turned into a full-fledged quest for re-use. The interior structures of the house have grown so much that the house has practically become a living organism.So what is it like living in a space that is constantly growing and adapting? Find out after the break!

For the past several years the Chicago Park District and the City of Chicago have been working on appropriate uses for Northerly Island, a 91-acre man-made peninsula in Chicago, Illinois. The lakefront site branches off from Museum Campus, a section along Lake Michigan that is home to the Field Museum, Shedd Aquarium, and Adler Planetarium. Serving as an expansion to these cultural programs, Studio Gang Architects have created an innovate design that integrates educational, cultural, social, and recreational activities into Northerly Island.

Read more about Northerly Island's future after the break!

Cook County, Illinois, recently brought the elimination of construction waste to a new level by creating the first demolition debris ordinance in the Midwest. This groundbreaking ordinance requires most of the debris created from demolition to be recycled and reused instead of being sent to the landfill. The ordinance helps contribute to Cook County’s zero waste goal, part of the Solid Waste Plan Update.

The new law states that at least 7 percent of suburban construction and demolition debris must be recycled, and an additional 5 percent must be reused on residential properties. This new legislation will have a great impact as it affects about 2.5 million suburban Cook County residents.

More after the break...

La Défense, Paris’ major business district, is about to undergo a transformation with the help of Paris architecture firm AWP. AWP’s plan was presented to government agencies EPADESA and DEFACTO as well as local communities in November 2012, but will be released to the public for the first time in March. The proposed plan not only updates and adds to the current site: it rethinks and reevaluates what already exists. More on the plan after the break.