"If you want things to happen, you have to make them happen," citizen-activist Diane Walkowiak has said. Back in May 2010, we reported that the 1913 Industrial Arts Building (IAB) was on the National Trust's list of endangered places. First built as the Agricultural Hall, a centerpiece of the Nebraska State Fair, the enormous, trapazoidal building fell into disrepair. It closed in 2004. However, preservationists believed that the building's Renaissance-inspired architectural exterior with Palladian windows should be saved.

In 2010, the fairground relocated. The University of Nebraska-Lincoln planned to develop the old fairground, creating a research park called Innovation Campus. As is the case in many communities, demolition of unused structures was more cost-effective than rehabilitation.

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Today, at the National Convention of of American Institute of Architects, the AIA honors The Architects of Healing. When Milena and Paul Murdoch explained aspects of their winning Flight 93 National Memorial design to family members in 2005 (see photo), they knew the type of emotional journey they were taking.

"I've seen through the process how powerful a vision can be -- and how challenging it can be to carry that vision through a process," says Paul Murdoch in an AIA video. "It's worth it. It's worth that effort."

Ceremony participants include:

• Daniel Libeskind, FAIA, Freedom Tower
• David Childs, FAIA, Freedom Tower
• Michael Arad, AIA, Design Architect, Reflecting Absence
• Craig Dykers, AIA, National 9/11 Museum in New York
• Steven Davis, FAIA, Architect of Record, National September 11 Memorial at the World Trade Center
• Santiago Calatrava, FAIA, WTC Transportation Hub
• Robert Davidson, FAIA, Port Authority chief architect

New and Updated Pages will return next week.

^{Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images, ©2005 Getty Images}

I thought I didn't like Bauhaus as residential architecture. International modernism in my mind was acceptable for more public buildings like Le Corbusier's United Nations. And then I visited the modest home Walter Gropius built for himself in Lincoln, Massachusetts, near Boston.

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Architecture is history, so it's appropriate that David McCullough deliver the opening keynote address this week at the 2012 AIA National Convention in Washington, DC. The well-known historian and prize-winning author will examine the role of the architect through our nation's history. The speech should crystallize this year's convention theme that Design Connects. Read More...