Detroit as muse: City’s shortcomings provide area artists with plenty of creative inspiration

Detroit artists use city’s blight as their canvas

Architect: Plans to rebuild fire-damaged CCTV building under way

Plans to rebuild damaged CCTV building under way

House that could float on New Orleans’ floods brought to site of Brad Pitt’s rebuilding effort

NEW ORLEANS — A house capable of floating atop rising floodwaters made its debut Tuesday in New Orleans alongside more than a dozen other homes built through actor Brad Pitt’s Make It Right Foundation.

NYC Planning Commission: Museum of Modern Art tower must be redesigned shorter by 200 feet

NEW YORK — New York City’s Planning Commission says a proposed tower next to the Museum of Modern Art is too high.

Long neglected, last standing Frank Lloyd Wright hotel will get $18 million renovation in Iowa

DES MOINES, Iowa —Frank Lloyd Wright enthusiasts are claiming victory in their effort to restore the architect’s last standing hotel, a northern Iowa landmark that has fallen apart over the past few decades.

NY gov to World Trade Center site developer: We could build at ground zero without you

NEW YORK — New York Gov. David Paterson gave World Trade Center site developer Larry Silverstein an ultimatum Monday in prolonged talks over his lease to build three planned office towers, saying ground zero rebuilding could go ahead without him if necessary.

Buchenwald concentration camp’s gate to be part of Bauhaus exhibition in Germany

WEIMAR, Germany — The iron gate at the entrance to Buchenwald has been temporarily removed to form the centerpiece of an exhibit in tribute to its designer, who was forced to come up with the concept while an inmate at the Nazi concentration camp.

Wisconsin atheist group seeks to block ‘In God We Trust’, pledge engravings at US Capitol

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.

House to approve marker explaining role of slaves in construction of US Capitol

WASHINGTON — The House on Tuesday acknowledged the use of African-American slaves in the construction of the U.S. Capitol, ordering officials to place a marker inside the new Capitol Visitor Center using some of the original stone quarried by those slaves for the historic building.

Federal judge rejects Conn. law that requires a license to be an interior designer

HARTFORD, Conn. — A federal judge has struck down a Connecticut law that requires people calling themselves interior designers to get a license or face fines and possible prison time.

Scaled-back Nets arena, Brooklyn development in new deal for government land

NEW YORK — The owner of the New Jersey Nets will get a 22-year delay on paying the full $100 million for the right to build a new arena in Brooklyn under a deal made public Monday.

Iran’s unassuming political insider now rock star in opposition “green wave” movement

He’s gone from colorless insider to political rock star — a graying, bearded veteran of the Islamic regime who now stands at the forefront of a youth-driven movement fighting for change.

Vandals hurl paint-filled balloons at US-designed Ara Pacis museum in Rome

ROME — Vandals threw paint-filled balloons at a controversial museum designed by U.S. architect Richard Meier overnight, splashing the red and green colors of the Italian flag against the outside white wall, police said.

Rome’s Ara Pacis museum vandalized, colors of Italian flag painted on US-designed building

ROME — Vandals threw paint-filled balloons at a controversial museum designed by U.S. architect Richard Meier overnight, splashing the red and green colors of the Italian flag against the outside white wall, police said.

1960s hotel known as ‘West Coast White House’ among sites at risk from neglect, development

LOS ANGELES — The Century Plaza Hotel hosted President-elect Ronald Reagan’s victory celebration, a welcome home gala for the Apollo 11 astronauts and Bob Hope’s celebrity-studded Century Ball.

Belatedly, White House aide at center of NYC probe pays architect for home renovation job

NEW YORK — A New York City politician now with the Obama administration is trying to defuse suggestions that he took favors from an architect who needed city approval for a development project.

Designer unveils plans for new, 4-story National Children’s Museum near Washington

OXON HILL, Md. — The new National Children’s Museum near Washington, D.C., will be a four-story building with a rooftop garden and a wall of living plants.