The Nobel Peace Prize may be controversial, but you have to love the Nobel Peace Center where the winners are immortalized. Exhibits include a darkened room filled with LED screens in a field of sparkling rods like waving blades of grass. Approach a screen, and it springs to life with a video presentation from a featured Peace Prize winner.

US President Barack Obama is scheduled to receive his prize on December 10 during a ceremony at the nearby Oslo City Hall.

^{Oslo Peace Center Photo © Jackie Craven}

A visitor in our discussion forum writes, "My son has expressed interest in going to college for architecture and was wondering if anyone knows of any good web sites or books that I could get him to see if he really would like to become one."

Fortunately, there are a lot of resources to help students plan ahead. Here are some top picks:

• Become an Architect!
• Before You Choose an Architecture School
• Becoming an Architect, book by Dr. Lee W. Waldrep

Got more ideas? Join the discussion.

When I think of a war monument, I imagine a heavy structure anchored firmly to the earth. But the USS Arizona Memorial floats in the Hawaiian harbor.

Straddling the hull of the sunken USS Arizona ship, the World War II memorial honors the 1,177 crewmen who were killed when their ship was struck by Japanese bombers.

More Great Memorials >>

^{Photo: The USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor, ArtToday.com}

Forget the bric-a-brac and costume jewelery. What I really want for the holidays is a ticket to one of those Wright Way architecture tours offered by the Frank Lloyd Wright Preservation Trust. There's the Wright Meets Art Deco tour in Florida, the Washington DC tour during Cherry Blossom season in April, and even a 12-day architecture tour in Japan.

But if these sound too expensive, how about a leisurely visit to the Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio? Please?

• Architecture Trip Tips
• Share Your Gift Ideas

_{Above: The Frank Lloyd Wright Home in Oak Park, Illinois. Photo © Steve Estes}

I'm not a Catholic, but it's still nice to honor December 4 because it's the feast day of Saint Barbara. According to Catholic beliefs, the martyred Barbara offers special protection for architects and stone masons because her troubled life included imprisonment in a tower. Barbara isn't the only patron saint for architects, however. Saints Bernward and Thomas the Apostle have also been associated with the building trades.
Learn more:

• Barbara - The Name and the Legend
• A Day to Honor Saint Barbara

Modernism Week in Palm Springs, California is promising to be the biggest event ever with a city-wide celebration of Desert Modernism and a rare chance to see inside the mountain-side Frey House II by Albert Frey.

Also in 2010, Palm Springs will celebrate the 84th birthday of architect Donald Wexler with tours of Wexler-designed celebrity homes, Wexler's historic Steel Development Houses, Wexler tract homes in El Rancho Vista Estates, and Wexler's own Palm Springs home.

Make your reservations soon and you might get to stay in one of those nostalgic 1950s-era hotels that Palm Springs is so famous for.

Details:

• January 22-24, 2010: Wexler Weekend
• February 12-21, 2010: Modernism Week 2010

Have you visited Palm Springs? Tell us what you saw!

_{Above: Completed in 1963, Albert Frey's International Style Frey House II is set in the craggy mountainside overlooking Palm Springs, California. Photo © Jackie Craven}

December 1 is the birthday of Minoru Yamasaki, who designed the World Trade Center buildings that were destroyed in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Yamasaki was born in Seattle, Washington in 1912. He became noted for impressive, sculptural buildings such as the Lambert-St. Louis Municipal Air Terminal, the American Concrete Institute, the Reynolds Metal Company, and the U.S. science pavilion at the 1962 Seattle Exposition.

For information about reconstruction on Ground Zero, visit our World Trade Center Resources page.

^{Photo © Mary Ann Sullivan, Digital Imaging Project}

The Italian Renaissance master Andrea Palladio is to architecture what Julia Child is to cooking. He borrowed ideas from the past, added his own insights, and created a straightforward approach to design that builders anywhere could follow. American statesman Thomas Jefferson modeled his own home after Palladio's architecture. Chances are your own home reflects "Palladian" ideas.

November 30, is Andrea Palladio's birthday. He was born in 1508.

• Andrea Palladio - Biography
• Andrea Palladio - Books
• Renaissance Architecture

^{Photo: The Basilica by Andrea Palladio © Mary Ann Sullivan, Digital Imaging Project}

Skyscraper pioneer Cass Gilbert was born on November 29, 1859. Known for his Neo-Gothic skyscrapers and his classically-inspired public buildings, Cass Gilbert helped shape the way cities look like today.

^{Photo: The US Supreme Court Building by Cass Gilbert
© VisionsofAmerica/Joe Sohm, Getty Images}

Everyone loves to bash suburbia. But, are the suburbs really so bad? Paul Barker's new book Freedoms of Suburbia (compare prices) argues that the suburbs have gotten a bad rap. Rupa Huq, author of the pop music book Beyond Subculture (compare prices), notes that the suburbs have much to praise.

The Sunny Side of the Suburbs:
Suburbia: The New Utopia? in The Guardian

A Darker View of the Suburbs:
Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream

Your Turn:
Are suburban houses boring? Cast your vote