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Latest News

Our 2025 Annual Theme: Places of Worship

Interior view of North Shore Congregation Israel; Architect: Minoru Yamasaki

Credit

C. William Brubaker Collection, University of Illinois Chicago.

Featured News

Our 2025 Annual Theme: Places of Worship

December 19, 2024

Article

October 15, 2025

Special Edition: Places of Worship Vol. 2

Special Edition Vol. 2 of °®¶ąapp’s 2025 Annual Theme on “Places of Worship” focuses on the adaptive reuse of Modernist sacred places. As the issue’s guest editor, Partners for Sacred Places approaches the topic of adaptive reuse from a “both-and” perspective.

Newsletter, Special Edition, Places of Worship

Article

October 15, 2025

From Sacred Space to Therapeutic Sanctuary: The Norwegian Seamen’s Church Finds New Purpose as Spyre Center

At its height, the Norwegian Seamen’s Church consisted of 31 churches across the globe, serving as a home away from home for over 900,000 seafaring and expatriate Norwegians. Today, as Spyre Center, the building has found new life through adaptive reuse for a contemporary audience seeking a holistic health community rather than organized religion. 

Newsletter, Special Edition, Places of Worship

Article

October 15, 2025

Between Elastic Modernism and Iconic Simplicity

Two Mid-Century Modernist chapels in New Orleans, the Episcopal Chapel of the Holy Spirit and the Methodist NOLA Wesley Center, built within three blocks and ten years of each other, demonstrate what it looks like for a religious building to stay and adapt.

Newsletter, Special Edition, Places of Worship

Article

October 15, 2025

Crosses of Chicago

Crosses of Chicago is a series of photographs by Kim E. Lovely that documents 30 storefront churches that were located throughout the South and West sides of Chicago between 2005 and 2007. The series captures the bold graphic aesthetic of storefront churches, including hand-painted Latin crosses, signage, and graphic facades.

Newsletter, Special Edition, Places of Worship

Article

October 15, 2025

Restoring Mendelsohn, Building Community: The Adaptive Reuse of Park Synagogue in Cleveland Heights

A case study for other postwar synagogue designers, Park Synagogue is now becoming an important precedent in the preservation and adaptive reuse of Modernist sacred places.

Special Edition, Places of Worship

Article

October 15, 2025

North Christian Church, Columbus, Indiana

North Christian Church and its site are in transition from a house of worship to a secular purpose, as part of a public library system. This presents an intriguing opportunity and challenge for creative solutions highlighting the unique design by Eero Saarinen and his colleagues, while devising appropriate designs for the new use.  

Newsletter, Columbus, Annual Theme

Article

July 15, 2025

Special Edition: Places of Worship Vol. 1

The °®¶ąapp Annual Theme “Places of Worship” profiles and explores the rich array of postwar Modern religious buildings that can be found in almost every community across the nation. It’s worth noting from the start that these buildings house worship, yes, but often much more.

Annual Theme, Special Edition, Places of Worship

Article

July 14, 2025

Faith in Flight: Preserving the Modernist Majesty of the USAF Academy Cadet Chapel

Architect Walter Netsch was only 34 when handed the monumental task of designing the Cadet Chapel – a centerpiece in the bold new vision for the United States Air Force Academy. The commission was unprecedented in scale: a Cold War-era project involving cadet quarters for 8,000, a hospital, an airfield, academic and administrative complexes, a court of honor, and more. Over 340 firms competed for the honor, but it was Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) that won the contract on July 23, 1954.

Newsletter, Annual Theme, Special Edition, Places of Worship

Article

July 14, 2025

Henry Slaby: Regional Catholic Modernist

In 2023, the Wisconsin State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO), the Milwaukee Historic Preservation Commission, and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee launched a project to survey Milwaukee’s 20th-century houses of worship. The survey had one unexpected outcome, however – the discovery of a relatively unknown architect whose work extended beyond the geographic boundaries of Milwaukee: Henry R. Slaby, AIA. Slaby (1906-1995) was born in Milwaukee and apprenticed in the local architectural office of Herbst & Kuenzli. 

Newsletter, Annual Theme, Special Edition, Places of Worship

Article

July 14, 2025

An Architect’s Disdain, A Community’s Beacon: Wright’s Community Christian Church

On Halloween night in 1939, the Community Christian Church – at the time known as the Linwood Boulevard Christian Church – suffered a fire that destroyed the church’s second building, and forced them to relocate for a fourth time since the congregation’s inception in 1888.

Newsletter, Annual Theme, Special Edition, Places of Worship

Article

July 14, 2025

The Ascetic Artist

From an adapted barn in Locust Valley, Richard Lippold spun wire into gossamer threads to create other worldly compositions. He eschewed organized religion but was deeply connected to the natural world and communed with the metals that composed his sculptures.

Newsletter, Annual Theme, Special Edition, Places of Worship

Article

July 14, 2025

Heaven in Proportion: Lutah Maria Riggs’ Hidden Masterpiece

Tucked into the quiet hills of Montecito, California, the Vedanta Temple emerges like a secret sanctuary for both visitors and spiritual seekers. Designed by Lutah Maria Riggs in 1956, it is a rare example of sacred architecture that blends philosophical depth, environmental sensitivity, and architectural restraint.

Newsletter, Annual Theme, Special Edition, Places of Worship

Article

July 14, 2025

Church of the Transfiguration: A Masterpiece of Lithuanian Folk Art Modernism

Tucked away on a quiet side street in the low-rise Queens neighborhood of Maspeth sits a little known modernist masterpiece of Lithuanian architecture, the Church of the Transfiguration.

Endangered, Newsletter, Annual Theme, Special Edition, Places of Worship

Article

July 14, 2025

In a Giant Sapphire

Wallace Harrison, the architect best known for such projects as the United Nations Headquarters, Lincoln Center, and Albany’s Empire State Plaza, designed only one church, First Presbyterian Church in Stamford, CT, 1952–1958.

Newsletter, Annual Theme, Special Edition, Places of Worship

Article

October 31, 2024

SPECIAL EDITION: Corporate Campuses Vol. 2

Welcome to the second installment of the 2024 Special Edition! We are excited to share the following articles and photo essay, which highlight Eero Saarinen’s outsize influence on corporate modern architecture; the impact of Formica on Cincinnati and other businesses; and how American corporate campuses influenced similar developments in Canada.

corporate modernism, Special Edition, Annual Theme, Corporate Campuses

Article

October 29, 2024

Bell Labs: A Corporate Campus Visual Essay

I spent an entire day wandering the atrium and manicured outdoor walkways feeling, thinking, and seeing what I imagined Eero Saarinen wanted (or didn’t want!) the inhabitants of this building to see and feel and think, my camera searching for compositions and forms that I hoped would reveal a version of the building that wasn’t the current and familiar depiction of the place. Saarinen’s design impresses as much as it provokes; the otherworldly reflections off the facade; the blissfully smooth curves of the sunken granite lobby and stairways; the linear walkways that seem to float along the perimeter of the atrium like walkways on a ship’s deck. You can’t help but feel transported – time moves differently within the space – and I wanted to try and capture this essence.

corporate modernism, Special Edition, Annual Theme, Corporate Campuses

Article

October 29, 2024

Eero Saarinen’s General Motors Technical Center: 70 Years of a Corporate Campus

In 1949, General Motors officially announced its intention to construct a centralized product development campus, called the “General Motors Technical Center;” the site would finally co-locate all the disparate research, engineering, design and manufacturing activities that had outgrown its previous homes into one cohesive site. The press release read: “Architecturally, the buildings will be of unique design, both modern and functional in concept,” – now an enormous understatement given the legacy of the Eero Saarinen-designed campus and its influence on industrial architecture.

corporate modernism, Special Edition, Annual Theme, Corporate Campuses

Article

October 29, 2024

Big Blue in Minnesota

Whether it’s big box chain stores or anonymous manufacturing facilities, wide, flat-faced buildings are a common sight on the route into Rochester, Minnesota, from the north. About five miles from downtown, the IBM Manufacturing & Training Facility has a similar boxy massing to other buildings on the street but has a distinctive blue facade pattern. From the air, the vast scale of this building can start to be understood – in fact, when viewed from above, it resembles a computer chip. IBM Rochester is still the largest IBM facility under one roof, enclosing 3.6 million square-feet on 400 acres. In this city, IBM’s frequent moniker “Big Blue” applies to both the company and the building. Commissioned in 1956 and designed by Eero Saarinen & Associates, the opening of the building in 1958 marks a key moment in IBM’s design legacy and Minnesota’s computing industry.  

corporate modernism, Special Edition, Annual Theme, Corporate Campuses

Article

October 22, 2024

Formica Corporation Expands from Cincinnati Center to a Global Footprint

Founded in 1913, the Formica Company boasts a rich history intricately linked with the development of Cincinnati. As the company expanded, its manufacturing campus gradually moved northward from the Ohio River, mirroring the city’s own growth. The Formica® brand has made a significant impact on corporate campuses not only through its own unique architectural expansion but also by manufacturing laminate products that have furnished corporate buildings since the 1930s.

corporate modernism, Special Edition, Annual Theme, Corporate Campuses

Article

October 22, 2024

American Influence and the Canadian Corporate Campus: Re-Imagining the Golden Mile

The Golden Mile can be found fifteen kilometers to the northeast of downtown Toronto, Canada and was one of the nation’s first industrial complexes that transition to commercial in the post-war area. The Golden Mile was once a place where iconic corporate campuses and companies like IBM. and others served as catalysts for economic development while supporting the growth and expansion eastwards alongside iconic planned residential subdivisions, which sprang up to house the new industrial workforce and support their modern lives. 

corporate modernism, Special Edition, Annual Theme, Corporate Campuses

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