Preservation Magazine

1 week ago | savingplaces.org | Margaret Littman

By: Margaret Littman Urban sociologist Ray Oldenburg coined the term “third spaces” to describe the public places that are neither home nor work where people congregate. These spots are crucial to community building. Be they coffee shops or barber shops, they’re places where we get to know our neighbors. We hear the local gossip and learn about ways we can be more engaged, informed, and involved.

2 weeks ago | savingplaces.org | Nathalie Alonso

From the 1970s until 2015, video art pioneers Shigeko Kubota (1937-2015) and Nam June Paik (1932-2006) lived and worked in a loft in the SoHo neighborhood of Lower Manhattan. The Mercer Street space was a “fluxhouse”—a collaborative artistic space associated with the avant-garde Fluxus movement. It served as a creative laboratory for the couple’s groundbreaking experiments in video art, a contemporary art form that combines moving images, sound and, often, sculptural elements.

2 weeks ago | savingplaces.org | Malea Martin

By: Malea Martin Three National Trust Historic Sites now have new leaders at the helm. Miguel Rodriguez was recently appointed as Chesterwood’s executive director after the retirement of his predecessor, Donna Hassler, who led the site for 14 years. Meredith Sorin Horsford was named the new executive director of The Pocantico Center, which includes National Trust Historic Site Kykuit, following the retirement of Judy Clark, who was with Pocantico for nearly 40 years.

1 month ago | savingplaces.org | Alexa Ura

On the second floor of Villa Finale, a National Trust Historic Site in San Antonio, a 1901 Grand Opera Zonophone still holds echoes of the past—and of the social functions that once revolved around this musical relic. Walter Mathis, the last owner of Villa Finale, was known for regularly hosting parties and intimate gatherings in the 1876 Italianate mansion in the King William Historic District.

1 month ago | savingplaces.org | Sharon Holbrook

photo by: Hunters Capital You might not guess that an elegant white terra-cotta building in Seattle’s University District is the city’s newest climbing gym. Nor would you imagine that you can take a relaxing sauna in its massive basement bank vault—but indeed you can, ever since the Bouldering Project opened in the historic University National Bank Building in late 2024.