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Say it with me, readers: College is worth it.For all the bellyaching about wasted degrees and the many indebted grads stuck on their parents’ couches, recent college graduates are still doing a lot better than their less-educated counterparts. Unemployment for new graduates is around 8.9 percent; the rate for workers with only a high school diploma is nearly three times as high, at 22.9 percent.That’s according to a new report [PDF] from Georgetown’s Center on Education and the Workforce. The report also had some fascinating statistics on earnings and jobless rates by college major, something we’ve written about before.The...

When it is completed, it will be the tallest building in Manhattan and one of incredible poignancy for New York City. One World Trade Center reached its 90th floor this week - with just 14 more floors to go until the top. The structure can now be seen from all five boroughs of the city. Stunning pictures showed how the area has been reborn since the 9/11 attacks more than a decade ago where almost 3,000 people lost their lives in the worst ever terrorist attack on American soil. Towering symbol: The fog rolls out across downtown Manhattan, captured from the...

A team has been set up, to put a stop to garage style churches, boldly shaped structures that risk denaturing modern places for Catholic worship. Its task is also to promote singing that really helps the celebration of mass. The “Liturgical art and sacred music commission” will be established by the Congregation for Divine Worship over the coming weeks. This will not be just any office, but a true and proper team, whose task will be to collaborate with the commissions in charge of evaluating construction projects for churches of various dioceses. The team will also be responsible for the...

Charles Borromeo and Catholic Tradition by Matthew Gallegos, appearing in Volume 9Charles Borromeo (1538– 1584), whom the Catholic Church recognizes as a saint, published a summary of Catholic traditions regarding church design fourteen years after the conclusion of the Council of Trent. Borromeo’s publication, Instructiones Fabricae et Supellectilis Ecclesiasticae, was the central document that applied the decrees of the Council of Trent to the design and furnishing of Catholic churches.2 Borromeo officially wrote the Instructiones to direct construction within the Archdiocese of Milan, but his intention was that it have wider usage. Borromeo published the document in 1577, and it...

Between diseases, global warming and falling satellites, we have a lot to worry about these days – but let’s not forget about the looming threat of a zombie apocalypse. To help us prepare for this potential undead disaster, the folks at Architects Southwest, an architecture firm based in Louisiana, have launched the 2011 Zombie Safe House Competition. The organization has tasked artists, architects and other zombie enthusiasts with one goal: Design a haven that can withstand a full-on zombie assault on civilization as we know it. Design entries so far are varied and imaginative, to say the least. A top...

Scroll down on the Divinely Designed Church entry for this bonus entry: Stephen Huneck’s Dog Chapel, complete with statue of a man walking his dog After his dogs (and loving wife!) helped him recover from a serious illness that doctors thought would kill him, artist Stephen Huneck decided to build a chapel in honor man’s best friend. Huneck built the dog chapel on his mountain-top farm in St. Johnsbury, Vermont. Inside, there are four pews with dog sculptures, a fantastic dog stained-glass window and other interesting dog-themed arts.

In thirty months, St. Peters Square will return to looking like that which was conceived and built in the second half of the 1600s. Work has already begun on the Bernini columns and soon they will be restored in all of their original color and brilliance; as one of the most important Baroque symbols, famous not only in architecture and urban planning – as a space dedicated to public religious ceremonies – but also as highly allegorical artistic representation of an ecumenical embrace of the universal Church to all people. The immense construction site aims to restore all of the...

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Featured Term (selected at random):AISLE An architectural division of a church separated from the nave by rows of pillars or columns. In Gothic buildings the roof of the aisle is lower than that of the nave. Sometimes the aisles stop at the transepts, but often they are continued around the apse. Confusing ala (wing) with the French allée (alley), the word aisle is popularly used to describe the passage between rows of pews or chairs. (Etym. Latin ala, wing.) All items in this dictionary are from Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.

1. I'm convinced several forum members who are impressed by Sweden's Liberal policies on immigration wish to contribute in a constructive manner to this thread:) 2. Which is the biggest shopping mall on Earth? According to Forbes, no mall in the entire US enters the top ten list! (See link below) However, there are many ways to count. If you'd measure them by the number of shops, Emporia would beat number 10 on that list by around 100% even though it will have only half the size. Furthermore, the yearly combined sales of a mall like Emporia, located in an...

The Sistine Chapel (Cappella Sistina) is the best-known chapel in the Apostolic Palace, the official residence of the Pope in Vatican City. It is famous for its architecture and frescoes by the greatest Renaissance artists including Michelangelo, Raphael, Bernini, and Sandro Botticelli... The chapel takes its name from Pope Sixtus IV, who restored the old Cappella Magna between 1477 and 1480. Under the patronage of Pope Julius II, Michelangelo painted 12,000 square feet of the chapel ceiling in the four years between 1508 and 1512. Today the ceiling of the chapel -and in-particular The Last Judgement- is widely believed to be Michelangelo's crowning achievement....

The New Book About "Hetzendorf" by Publisher 'Facultas' Today a book was ordered in Vienna, that didn't just bring the local Archdiocese to snort. The first drops of sweat are flowing. (kreuz.net, Wien) This evening Heidemarie Seblatnig presented her new book "Hetzendorf and the Iconoclasim of the Second Half of the 20th Century" in Vienna according to neo-Conservative videosite 'gloria.tv'.

Featured Term (selected at random):CLERESTORY The upper part of a church wall having windows in it above the roofs of the aisles. Found in early Christian basilicas, it was beautifully developed later in Gothic cathedrals. All items in this dictionary are from Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.

Pope Benedict XVI is to visit the Spanish city of Barcelona to consecrate Antoni Gaudi's unfinished cathedral, the Sagrada Familia, as a basilica. Gaudi's greatest work has been under construction for more than a century, and will not be finished before 2026.

The Diocese of Speyer have renovated a protestant Church for the old believers (traditionalists). The supper table is gone, the tabernacle is back, where it belongs, and the communion rail has been put up. [kreuz.net, Speyer] Today the Bishop Karl-Heinz Wiesemann (50) of Speyer blessed a new altar in the collegial church in Newstadt on Weinstrasse. The pontifical office with altar blessing begins at 5pm, according to the website of the Dicoese of Speyer. Newstadt is located fifteen kilometers northeast of Speyer.

Copenhagen - Police in Denmark arrested a suspected possible suicide bomber Friday following a small explosion at a hotel in central Copenhagen, media reports said. Danish daily Extra Bladet showed on its website a photo of the suspect, who had reportedly attempted to blow himself up. Police did not immediately confirm the report. No one was injured in the explosion at the Jorgensen Hotel. Police handcuffed the man after he was seen running away from the hotel and into the nearby Orstedsparken park. The park was evacuated and the surrounding streets were cordoned off as explosive experts were called in....

The New York Review of Books, via an article submitted by a man appropriately named Martin Filler has “deconstructed” Prince Charles dislike of modern architecture. Deconstruction, in case you did not know, is the postmodern literary process of discovering or inventing words or actions from your victim in order to uphold your preconceived beliefs. Filler’s belief is that modern architecture, and those that create and design that architecture are good. By “good” he evidently does not mean “beautiful”, “useful”, or “lasting.” Instead, the word translates into “ability to win awards.” Awards which are created and doled out by men such...

Intruders attempted to steal relics of the Italian National Hero Padre Pio (1887-1968) in the dead of night. Rome (kath.net/KAP) Intruders attempted to steal relics of the Italian National Hero Padre Pio (1887-1968) in the dead of night. The thieves broke into the chapel crypt of the south Italian city of Saint Giovanni Rotundo, according to the Roman daily 'La Republica' (Monday-Edition) which was reported to the local police. There the perpetrators broke through the bulletproof glass, behind which the reliquary of the Capuccin Monk is located.

The sanctuary walls are, as a rule, made of flat wood, concrete and glass wrapped in metals with an industrial look -- often matching the furnishings on the stark altar. The windows are frosted or tinted in muted tones of sky blue, lavender, amber or pink. If there are stained-glass images, they are ultramodern in style, to match any art objects that make sense in this kind of space. The floors are covered with carpet, which explains why there are speakers hanging in the rafters. The final product resembles a sunny gymnasium that just happens to contain an abstract crucifix,...

It is one of the planet's newest awe-inspiring superstructures - the Hoover Dam Bridge. Now the giant construction project which is on schedule to be completed in September can be seen in all its glory in a series of stunning photographs. Twelve years in planning and five years under construction, the development - known officially as the 'Mike O'Callaghan-Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge' - is finally taking shape.

Deep in the forests of central France, an unusual architectural experiment is half-way to completion, as a team of masons replicates in painstaking detail the construction of an entire medieval castle. The ­Chateau de Guedelon was started in 1998, after local landowner Michel Guyot wondered whether it would be possible to build a castle from scratch, using only contemporary tools and materials. Today, the walls are rising gradually from the red Burgundy clay. The great hall is almost finished, with only part of the roof remaining, while the main tower edges past the 15m (50ft) mark. Builders use sandstone quarried...

The scariest pool in the world, 55 stories above ground The "Sands Skypark" in Singapore is a pool, greenway and casino with an usual location. The whole thing sits atop not one, but three skyscrapers that make up the Marina Bay Sands hotel. The infinity pool itself is nearly 500 feet in length and features no discernible edge. So what would happen if you swam over? Don't worry, you wouldn't just plummet to the streets below. Instead, you'd fall where the rest of the water does: a basin that also acts as a filter for the water and sends it...

We thought we would share my wife’s pictures of the first true summer day of the year in England when we decided to drive from Sussex into Kent to visit Scotney Castle, now owned by The National Trust.

I have recently struck up a very enjoyable correspondence with Prof. Peter Kwasniewski, of the excellent Wyoming Catholic College, and read with great interest an article he recently wrote for the next edition of Latin Mass Magazine on the philosophy and theology of church architecture. (More information can be found at the magazine's website here.) Particularly interesting for me is his innovative but sound idea of linking the built structure of the church to the four marks of the institutional Church--One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic. This is the first time I have seen such an idea advanced and I find...

TODAY Al Gore is expected to join some of the city’s top developers and bankers for the grand opening of the luminous office tower known as 1 Bryant Park — the second-tallest building in New York City and, with a handsome foyer and a roster of prominent tenants, a ray of hope in a gloomy commercial real estate market. But beyond its height and tenancy rates, 1 Bryant Park is slated to be the only office tower in the nation to draw the United States Green Building Council’s highest level of certification — platinum — in its Leadership in Energy...

The founders of United Nude, Dutch architect Rem D Koolhaas and British shoemaker Galahad Clark, have launched their Spring/Summer 2010 collection. It’s bright, cool and sexy in its own way and very emblematic of how a Dutch architect would design footwear. Solid at the base, with lots of loops for support and an emphasis on soaring verticality. United Nude has produced a striking S/S collection that will please shoe lovers worldwide.

His pristine Ferrari 512 BBi "Boxer" sits in the middle of Holger Schubert's living room in Brentwood, right next to stylish furniture, a built-in bookcase and a flat-screen TV that slides on tracks past walls of glass that frame an ocean view. But Los Angeles officials are about to slam shut forever the garage door that leads to the city's most extravagant parking space City planners have withdrawn permission for Schubert to use a bridge to connect his Ferrari's third-floor resting spot with North Tigertail Road. The ruling by the West Los Angeles Area Planning Commission tosses a mechanic's...

Now that the first decade of the century is in the rear-view mirror, it's time to wave buh-bye to some ubiquitous design trends that have worn out their welcome. Here are my picks:

Architecture clearly illustrates the social, environmental, economic, and aesthetic costs of ignoring beauty. We are being torn out of ourselves by the loud gestures of people who want to seize our attention but give nothing in return. ___ When it comes to beauty, our view of its status is radically affected by whether we see it as a form of self-expression, or as a form of self-denial. If we see it in this second way, then the assumption that it is merely subjective begins to fall away. Instead beauty begins to take on another character, as one of the instruments...

The facade of the I.M. Pei-designed National Gallery East Wing is now crumbling. Catesby Leigh reports in the Wall Street Journal that the building, constructed using an experimental curtain wall system that the architect described as "a technological breakthrough for the construction of masonry walls," has become unstable. The clean lines and solid geometrical forms of the building's design simply could not be interrupted with unsightly expansion joints. I.M. Pei quite simply was shackled to his own modern design, constrained to have large uninterrupted geometries of stone, a technological solution was an absolute necessity. The earlier Main Building, designed by...

My heroine of the week is Amanda Baillieu, editor of architects’ trade journal Building Design. She noticed that when Environment Secretary Hillary Benn gave a talk at the Royal Institute of British Architects the other day on the looming peril of ManBearPig, hardly anyone bothered to turn up. In an extremely brave editorial entitled “Is Global Warming Hot Air?” she speculated that the reason may have been because even architects are getting tired of listening to hysterical drivel about impending eco-doom and the so-called “consensus” on Anthropogenic Global Warming. In fact, you’d be forgiven for not knowing there is a...

A posh palace is being built on the bank of Istrin water reservoir in the Moscow region. It’s a mansion looking like a huge 18th century palace, which is already informally named “Istrin mansion�. Its appearance, quick development and approximate cost were recently debated in Russian blogs. But still having some guesses about who could own such a luxury, no one has an official confirmation on who the lucky man really is. The thing is that this building together with its adjacent lands was earlier presented in Google Maps, but now there are no any marks of it. To be...

Someday, people will realize that they can demand better buildings and cities, and they will do so. Extraordinarily rich and powerful people will sense a market in flux, will shudder, see their fortunes heading for the door, and tap their politicians on the shoulder. Architects will start making places people like. Look for a tipping point. It could have happened during the redesign process after Sept. 11, 2001. It did not, but it could have. Someday it will. When it does happen, it will not be because millions suddenly read a book called “A Theory of Architecture” (2006) by architectural...

Image: Jim MerithewAfter the end of World War Two, tension and mistrust continuously grew between the USSR and its satellite states versus a western coalition led by the USA. A game of one-upmanship, lasting almost 50 years, developed with each group inventing stronger and more deadly weapons in an attempt to hold a military advantage.Alongside this military might developed a deep-seated fear of what would happen if there ever was an enemy strike. As a result, both nations went on a massive building campaign of bomb shelters, nuclear fallout sites and bunkers. Not to mention all the missile sites and...

A Santa Monica architect known for his high-rise designs is working on what may be the ultimate "spec" building -- a 224-story skyscraper with green ambitions that would be the tallest structure in the world. The tower is envisioned for a man-made island in Abu Dhabi, if leaders of the oil-rich emirate decide they want to make a statement to rest of the world and perhaps one-up neighboring Dubai. A conceptual design for the $3.5-billion project in the United Arab Emirates is under consideration by an Abu Dhabi planning committee, said Tommy Landau, the architect who created the design and...

The design for One World Trade Center has attracted substantial criticism, which is to be expected with a project of such public importance. Some of the gripes have merit. Overall, the finished site will be less impressive than the twin towers it is replacing. Nicolai Ouroussoff of the New York Times called the design "somber, oppressive and clumsily conceived, the project suggests a monument to a society that has turned its back on any notion of cultural openness." Not to mention any notion of collective courage in the face of the terrorist threat. The building's most objectionable feature is the...

A towering North Korean hotel which Esquire magazine once dubbed "the worst building in the history of mankind" has come back to life with a facade of shiny glass windows affixed to one side of the concrete monolith. But few expect the North will ever finish construction of its 105-storey Ryugyong Hotel, started in 1987 and halted for 16 years because it could have bankrupted the destitute state. "The hotel doesn't look as shoddy as it once did, probably because of the reflective glass," said a member of a civic group in South Korea that recently returned from a visit...

Living Architecture: Growing your house, one chair at a time Plants are amazing: they provide food, air, medicine, and material with which we can create buildings, furniture, and art. But through an ancient yet obscure craft, still-living plants can themselves be turned into bridges, tables, ladders, chairs, works of art, and even buildings. Known variously as botanical architecture, tree sculpture, tree-shaping, tree-grafting, pooktre, arborsculpture, and arbortecture, the craft is, at its essence, construction with living plants. The concept seems to date back to prehistoric times. Perhaps the oldest examples are the living bridges of Cherrapunjee, India. 1. Root Bridges of...

The Federal Building in downtown Youngstown, Ohio, features an extensive use of natural light to illuminate offices and a white roof to reflect heat. It has LEED certification, the country’s most recognized seal of approval for green buildings. But the building is hardly a model of energy efficiency. According to an environmental assessment last year, it did not score high enough to qualify for the Energy Star label granted by the Environmental Protection Agency, which ranks buildings after looking at a year’s worth of utility bills. The building’s cooling system, a major gas guzzler, was one culprit. Another was its...

In the coming disaster movie "2012," tragedy strikes Randy's Donuts in Inglewood when its giant rooftop donut becomes unhinged and is last seen bouncing down the street in the direction of star John Cusack's limo. The incident is just digital magic, of course. In real life, Randy's -- once a member of the now-defunct Big Donut chain -- is very much intact, as 405 Freeway drivers know well.

The Pier Head Ferry Terminal in Liverpool has been named the country's ugliest new building ahead of London's Westfield shopping centre and the fire station at Poundbury, the Prince of Wales's Dorset model village. A panel of experts from Building Design magazine unanimously voted the £10.5m building, designed by Belfast-based Hamilton Architects, as the most notable new example of bad architecture. The judges said the damage the ferry terminal had done to Liverpool's waterfront, which is a Unesco world heritage site, meant it deserved the 'Carbuncle Cup'. Amanda Baillieu, editor of Building Design, said: "It was given the Carbuncle Cup...

Self-preservation is something that most humans take quite seriously, and that a few take to extremes. Faced with the real or imagined threat of attacks levied by nuclear, biological, and chemical weaponry, some people opt to head 25 feet underground, surrounded by concrete and complex air-filtration systems, surviving off rations and waiting, so to speak, for the end of the world.That’s the subject of Richard Ross’s Waiting for the End of the World, originally published by Princeton Architectural Press in 2004, for which Ross spent five years traveling over three continents, photographing the interiors of bomb shelters. “I’m a child...

Justo Gallego Martínez is building his very own Cathedral in Mejorada del Campo near Madrid, Spain This is no "model" cathedral and he is neither a qualified architect, nor engineer, nor bricklayer -- he is a farmer. "The plans have only ever existed in my head" and have evolved over time in response to opportunity and inspiration. Nor does he have formal planning permission from the authorities of Mejorada del Campo -- the town in which it is located (20 km from Madrid under the flight-path to the Barajas airport).Nor does he have the benediction or support of the Catholic...

Featuring log buildings presently under re-construction at the Frontier Culture Museum in Staunton, Virginia. This provides a good look at how such buildings were made.

A rare opportunity to live in a national landmark has arisen in Los Angeles where Ennis House, an architectural gem designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, has gone up for sale for $15 million. The architect designed Ennis House in 1923, dubbing the stark, concrete block-clad mansion his "temple on the hill" and predicting that it would still fascinate people a century later. It offers wonderful views across the city and, with its exotic, Mayan temple exterior and cathedral-like interior, it has featured in more than a dozen films including Blade Runner, The House on Haunted Hill and Black Rain. The...

Behind the glass- and marble-clad great arch of La Défense - built at the behest of François Mitterrand two decades ago - another French president is preparing an even more ambitious grand projet for Paris. Nicolas Sarkozy is planning a massive expansion of the business district on the north-western edge of Paris to challenge the City of London as Europe's pre-eminent financial centre. In spite of his tirades against financial capitalism, Mr Sarkozy wants a bigger slice of the business. The blueprint for La Défense - which includes several spectacular skyscrapers and, eventually, a further 1m sq m of office...

MADISON, Wis. – The nation's largest group of atheists and agnostics filed a lawsuit Tuesday seeking to block an architect from engraving "In God We Trust" and the Pledge of Allegiance at the Capitol Visitor Center in Washington. The Madison-based Freedom From Religion Foundation's lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in western Wisconsin, claims the taxpayer-funded engravings would be an unconstitutional endorsement of religion. The House and Senate passed identical resolutions this month directing the Architect of the Capitol to engrave "In God We Trust" and the pledge in prominent places at the entrance for 3 million tourists who visit...

HICAGO – Visitors to the Sears Tower's new glass balconies all seem to agree: The first step is the hardest. "It's like walking on ice," said Margaret Kemp, of Bishop, California, who said her heart was still pounding even after stepping away from the balcony. "That first step you take — 'am I going down?'"

Frank Lloyd Wright and LEGO would seem an unnatural fit: curve meets corner, prairie meets cube. But like a red brick and a yellow brick, the worldwide trademarks are now joined with a blue brick, an Illinois company called Brickstructures, in creating and selling LEGO building block versions of Wright’s iconic creations, Fallingwater and the Solomon Guggenheim Museum. Can Madison’s Monona Terrace be far behind? And how will the notoriously formal Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation handle its partnership with a worldwide company that also puts out a SpongeBob SquarePants model? You’ll have to make your own LEGO Monona Terrace, said...

Chunks of this city's rich and eclectic architectural history tumble to the ground every few days, piece by piece, forever lost in the rubble. Neo-Baroque and Art Deco treasures deteriorate at an alarming rate. Every three days, there are two partial or total building collapses in Central Havana alone, according to architectural experts. No official figures are available. "Buildings are standing by sheer luck," said architect Jose Antonio Choy, president of a Cuban nonprofit organization devoted to the conservation of Havana's modern architecture. In September, after Hurricane Ike's lethal 41-hour odyssey across much of the island, authorities reported 67 buildings...