During the late-eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, a booming plantation economy developed in western Cuba, spawning a dramatic increase in the country’s population as well as prompting a consolidation of its land-owning Creole aristocracy within the capital city of Havana. In the span of...Read more
The towering Colossi of Memnon are among the most impressive of the ancient monuments that dot the West Bank of the Nile at Luxor. Yet few visitors are aware that these magnificent sculptures are but two of countless statues that once graced the Mortuary Temple of Amenhotep III—in its day, the...Read more
A long stroll through the Georgian capital of Tbilisi lays bare the tumultuous history of this tiny country, nestled between Turkey and Russia on the eastern shore of the Black Sea, in the sooty, crumbling buildings that hug its winding streets and rise high on the hills over the Mtkvari River. Read more
When people think of historic preservation, what often comes to mind is a campaign to save a singular work of architectural merit. Yet over the years, the preservation community has adopted a wider world view of conservation, one that demands that we step back and consider collections of buildings—...Read more
When my colleagues and I first spied the Shaxi Valley from atop a mountain ridge in 1999, we were struck by its scenic beauty. We desperately wanted to explore the valley, but, unfortunately, Shaxi was not on the official itinerary provided by our host, the government of Jianchuan County, which had...Read more
For more than 1,000 years, Seto Naikai, Japan’s great Inland Sea, has served as a vast commercial highway, linking the islands of Kyushu and Shikoku with southern Honshu. Its 440-km coastline is punctuated with beautiful bays, inlets, and promontories. Within the sea itself are more than 3,000 tiny...Read more
For 70 years now, the vast brick walls and towering chimneys of Battersea Power Station have dominated the South London skyline, impossible to miss as one gazes out a train window while rumbling toward Waterloo or approaching the Thames en route to Victoria Station.Read more
Settled more than a millennium ago and sited atop a sandstone mesa that rises more than 100 meters above the surrounding landscape, Acoma Pueblo, 96 kilometers west of Albuquerque, NM, is North America’s oldest continually inhabited village. Its name denotes a “place that always was.” Dominating...Read more
When the city of Cairo was rebuilt and laid out by the Fatimids in 969–974 (358 Hijri), and named al-Quahira (“the Victorious”), 20 percent of it—roughly 30 hectares—was devoted to open space. East of the al-Mu’izz palace, horseriding grounds were turned into a royal park and garden and a large...Read more
You can see it for kilometers: an immense Corinthian column, towering up nearly 30 meters toward the sky, its massive pedestal set on a high rocky outcrop some twenty-minutes’ drive to the west of Wexford, in the southeast corner of Ireland. The country possesses many grand ornamental landscape...Read more