ART URBANE The contemporary art museum increasingly shares responsibility for the well-being of its parent city, supporting tourism and its consequent revenue, and galvanizing local redevelopment. So the Figge, a new museum by British firm David Chipperfield Architects, on the banks of the Mississippi River in Davenport, Iowa, not only envelopes its collections in a luminous and strictly orthogonal embrace, but it stands as a glowing emblem for the regeneration of Davenport's riverfront downtown. — Published 2005.1109
	IRELAND EYE For a highway-side retail park in Galway, Ireland, Douglas Wallace Architects have designed an unusual and refreshing cinema. Views in and out of the building are key parts of the experience, and the theaters themselves are dramatic and artfully crafted, with special attention to detail. A glamorous theatricality reigns both inside and on the exterior facade. This is not your typical multiplex. — Published 2005.1026
	WHERE PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT Blacksmithing is such a fundamental craft that in French, the familiar proverb, "practice makes perfect," takes the form, "c'est en forgeant qu'on devient forgeron," or literally in English, "it's by forging that one becomes a blacksmith." — Editor — Published 2005.1005
	HIGH-METAL TOWER A crisp, subtly articulated new form has risen among the towers of New York. The Helena, a 580-unit apartment building designed by FXFOWLE ARCHITECTS, formerly Fox & Fowle Architects, brings elegant design and sustainable technologies to a building type often underserved in both these regards. — Published 2005.0928
	HOUSE OF PLASTIC The designs of Japanese architect Kengo Kuma critically engage the materiality of architecture in order to challenge its usual meanings, and in so doing, to thwart the emergence of architecture as an object. As he has shown in many of his projects, Kuma is determined to "dissolve" the materials that he uses, or to choose materials that are less substantial, stating, "If materials are thoroughly particlized, they are transient, like rainbows." — Published 2005.0914
	SMALLER CHEAPER BETTER SCHOOL Do students learn better in smaller environments? A growing number of educators and architects think so, and in Federal Way, Washington, a few of them have created a school that reflects this conviction. Harry S. Truman High School is flexible enough to accommodate the "smaller is better" approach to education and innovative enough to win top honors from the Council of Educational Facility Planners International (CEFPI). — Published 2005.0824
	ROOTS AND BRANCHES Located in a quiet neighborhood of Portland, Oregon, yet near the busy Capitol Highway which connects downtown with its western suburbs, Hillsdale Branch Library occupies a transitional point between single-family homes to the north and a series of commercial buildings to the south. — Published 2005.0817
	MODERN MOSQUE "It doesn't look like a mosque," said the Muslim woman when I asked for street directions to the Assyafaah Mosque in Singapore. Designed by Singapore-based Forum Architects, the mosque's architecture breaks with tradition. "It's modern," said the woman. — Published 2005.0803
	SANTIAGO VIEWPOINT "El Mirador" ("The Viewpoint") occupies a site on Cerro Apoquindo, on the eastern fringe of the Chilean capital, Santiago, near the Andean foothills. The house is dubbed "the bunker" by local taxi drivers, but the impassionate exterior concrete wall facing the street hides a light and spacious interior. — Published 2005.0720
	AFTER AIR BASE ACTION The new student union at the Arizona State University's East Campus in Mesa provides the centerpiece to a positive outcome of a military base closing. The campus is located on a former U.S. Air Force base, and this new building, designed by Gould Evans Associates in Phoenix, is a creative interpretation of making a place in the desert. — Published 2005.0629

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