Rieder North America

This evening in Paris, at approximately 6:30 p.m. local time, a fire broke out at the Notre-Dame Cathedral, located in the 4th arrondissement. Flames engulfed the the 850-year-old Gothic cathedral, which was constructed in 1163 during the reign of King Louis VII and completed in 1345. The structure was undergoing a major renovation. At approximately 8 p.m., the structure's delicate spire collapsed.

Ruby City—the newly completed museum by Adjaye Associates in San Antonio, Texas—is quite literally the dream come true of its late benefactor, Linda Pace. Shortly before her death in 2007, the artist, collector, and philanthropist had a dream about a city made of rubies. She sketched her vision and shared it with David Adjaye, whom she had met through a mutual friend, the British filmmaker and artist Isaac Julien. Pace’s drawing served as inspiration for a project that has now come to fruition.

Attendees of a recent presentation on the earthquake-resistant structure of San Francisco’s Salesforce Transit Center—intended to provide a safe haven when the Big One hits—lauded the engineering of the 4.5-block-long hollow tube that supports the 1.2-million-sq-ft “groundscraper.” But there also was much talk of the project’s black eye, as a consequence of brittle fractures of the bottom flanges of two bridge-like built-up plate girders that span 87 ft over Fremont Street.