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The author makes comparisons between the HBO television show "Rome" and the actual city of Rome, Italy. The author recounts what it was like being on the set of the television show, and he discusses the show's art direction with the various production people on the set. One idea the television show is trying to draw from is that the ancient city of Rome has strong parallels to modern culture.

The article reports that François Pinault has decided to move his world-class modern art collection to the Palazzo Grassi in Venice, Italy, instead of installing it in a museum he had planned to build in Paris, France. A native of Brittany, Pinault started his collection 30 years ago. The content of Pinault's collection is mentioned, along with designer Tadao Ando's role in the project.

Focuses on a house designed by architect, painter and sculptor Tony Smith in 1951. How the house has re-emerged as a model dwelling for life in 2005; Efforts of Jeff Preiss and Rebecca Quaytman to hire John Keenen to restore and renovate the house; Description of the design of the house; Assertion that the house is designed for outdoor living.

Focuses on the Italian city of Venice. History of Venice; Opinion Romantics had of Venice; The Piazzetta as a traditional gateway to Venice.

Focuses on the backdrops for sets in "Team America: World Police," a movie by Trey Parker and Matt Stone. The motion picture's plot; The role of designer David Rockwell in creating the movie's sets; Background on Rockwell; Photographs by Todd Eberle.

Profiles Santiago Calatrava, a Spanish architect and engineer who has redesigned a sports complex for the Olympic games to be held in Athens, Greece. Description of his work as the product of a contest between architecture and engineering, resulting in a combination of intuitive and rational elements; Transformation of an existing complex built in 1982; Creation of an immense roof for the main stadium; Sources of inspiration for his design, classical Greek and Byzantine.

Profiles the life and work of architect Zaha Hadid. Photographs showing examples of her work; Awarding of the Pritzker Architecture Prize, the profession's highest award; Native of Baghdad and long time resident of London; Highlights of her career and personality; Description of her style; Emphasis on movement.

Profiles a new house by the British architect John Pawson. Highlights of the minimalist style of the house; Role of books in a life characterized by scrupulous nonattachment; Photographs of the house.

Presents several proposals for structures to be built at the site of the collapsed World Trade Center in New York City. Importance of not using traditional design and planning channels for this site; International, social and economic importance of the site; Details of these proposals, including the use of the so-called ground zero as a largely open area; Redirection of traffic to the area; Details of several building design proposals to replace the WTC; Uses of these buildings, including commercial and residential.

Discusses the influence of Viennese architect Adolf Loos. How Loos became a pivotal figure in the community of artists and intellectuals that flourished in Vienna at the turn of the nineteenth century; His view of architecture; Description of his work, including the American Bar and Looshaus; Biographical details; Photographs of men's fashions in buildings by Loos.

Presents a photographic essay of Times Square in New York City by Stephen Wilkes. Ideas on how the photographs represent the philosophy of Guy Debord on urban centers; Pictures of the electric circuity behind the signs in the square, including the Coke sign, Discover sign and Nasdaq sign.

Discusses architect Frank Gehry and his design of the new cafeteria of the Conde Nast building in New York City. Focus of the layout on traditional elements of architectural form, such as space, shape and light; Layout of cafeteria; Influence of British architect William Lethaby; Other designs by Gehry.

Highlights entries in the exhibition `Capturing Time: The New York Times Capsule' featured at New York's American Museum of Natural History until the spring of 2000, in which participants are encouraged to devise original methods of communication with people in the year 3000. The encoding of written material into the DNA of cockroaches, so that it would be carried on through breeding; The creation of a stone `chaise lounge' so that information would be absorbed by those who recline on it.

Presents the features and designs of the Manhattan, New York-office of the advertising agency Chiat/Day Incorporated. Arrangement of the office spaces; Layout of the building; Specific designs of the rooms; Advanced technology used in the office processes; Design of the office by artist Gaetano Pesce; Incorporations of modern artworks.

Features the works of photographer Nick Waplington. Presentation at the Burden Gallery in New York; Description of Waplington's art by historian Stephen Kern; Influence of Cubism and Futurism.

Assesses the negative effect of installing a home gym. Difficult handling of exercise machines; Home exercise program of novelist and professor Richard Sennett.

Discusses the evolution of industrial design. Impact of powerful design; Design as an art of transition; Basis of good design esthetic.

Presents the photographs of Lars Tunbjork. His subject of offices and what he calls `The Mess'; Function of the mess; Comments.

Provides a look at the satellite of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation in New York, the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain opening October 19, 1997. Designed by Frank Gehry; Unique features of museum; Background on Gehry; Gehry's inspiration; Comments from Gehry.

Focuses on American architect Frank Gehry. The Goldstein Housing Project, his low-cost housing project in Frankfurt, Germany; Why the design refutes the myth that the art of architecture is at odds with a social conscience; Details of the 11-acre site.

Highlights the author's experience during his stay at the Casa Malaparte on the isle of Capri. Background on the home's original owner and designer Curzio Malaparte; Architectural design of the house; Most famous features; History of the house's construction in the 1930s; Geometry of the house; Restoration efforts under Niccolo Rositani.

Focuses on the use of homoerotic imagery in the photography of Bruce Weber. Increases in the use of men as advertising models; Psychological aspects of Weber's photography in light of their shocking nature; Comment on how Weber subverts the hierarchy that values women for looks and men for achievements.

Discusses modernism in architecture in the 20th century. Modernism in the 1920s; 1950s individual buildings; Broadening of an avant-garde aesthetic into the cultural mainstream; Appeal of functionalism; Theme of the 1960s Eastern Airlines Whisperjet; Decline of modernism; Revival of the new modernism in the late 20th century.

Focuses on America's architecture which reflects its democratic roots. Renewal of tradition dictates to simplify, eliminate, pare down; Aim to align the aristocratic art of architecture with modern democratic ideals; Replace opulence of the past with visual intelligence; Establish simplicity of effect as the aesthetic equivalent of individual merit; Marie Antoinette; Thomas Jefferson; Association with ancient Greece; Art Nouveau harnessed power of machine age; Details.

The article argues that an obsession with personal beauty has replaced a male fascination with architecture as a outward projection of male vanity. The Dermo System like from Dior Homme, designed by Hedi Slimane could be used as a model of a postmodern cityscape, using architectural forms in their bottles. Both architecture and skin care pander to the propensity towards making over exteriors.

Discusses the hotel designed by architect Andre Balazs.

Offers a look at the music of pianist Peter Duchin and his band. Role of Duchin in creating an atmosphere for dancing; Report that Duchin made live music accessible to a wider public; Reference to the book "Terrible Honesty," by Ann Douglas; Reference to the memoir "Ghost of a Chance," by Duchin.

Looks at why Art Nouveau is considered once again fashionable. Art Nouveau's presentation of inner life as a force of nature and a source of menace and wonder; Why historians used to describe Art Nouveau as a transitional style; Emergence of a reflexive Modernism as seen by author Ulrich Beck; Modernity as a cause of Victorian anxiety.

Discusses the kinds of people who are interested in architecture. Reference to Richard Florida who calls the people who are fans of architecture 'the creative class'; View that fans of architecture come from various upbringings and economic classes; How the globe-trotting nature of the 1960s and 1970s allowed students and others to explore the world and other ways of living; Discussion of Florida's new book 'The Rise of the Creative Class,' in which Florida calls the group of architecture fans 'yuppies' and 'bourgeois bohemians'; Discussion of the search for identity through design.

Reports on Conrad Hilton and the Hilton International hotels. Empire and objectives of Conrad Hilton; Architecture and construction of his foreign hotels; Modernity and Hilton's hotels; His marriage to Zsa Zsa Gabor; Significance and description of his Middle Eastern hotels, including the Nile Hilton in Cairo, Egypt, designed by Welton Becket; Hilton hotels in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem and their political importance.

Considers how the Japanese teahouse is a place of supreme elegance, which stands for the principle of almost infinite refusal. Evolution of the teahouse; Discussion of the Urasenke Chanoyu Center in Manhattan; Description of its tearooms.

Focuses on the Modern architecture of 25 St. James's Street in London, England. Author's experience meeting Derek Jarman, the would-be filmmaker, who toured him around London; Description of the building, which houses the Economist Group; Appearance of the building in Michelangelo Antonioni's "Blow-Up"; Comparison of the building to Mies van der Rohe's design.

Focuses on Andy Warhol's interviews, in light of a new collection of his magazines, "Andy Warhol's Interview, Volume One." Use if a tape recorder and transcription to produce interviews; Warhol's choice of vulgarity for his subject matter.

Identifies the Seagram tower in New York City as the best building of the millennium ending in 1999. Classical and Gothic features of the building, designed in 1958 by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in association with Philip Johnson; Description; Mies's definition of architecture; Classical and Gothic symbolism of brain function.

Presents a vision of what cities might look like in the late 21st century.