If buildings could make distress signals the Mercantile Library on Chestnut Street would fill the ears of all in Center City. The once sleek, mid-century modern structure, vacant for 26 years, now sits in a state of slow decay. Interior architect Shila Griffith says the bones of the building are still strong and envisions a co-working space for medical industrial designers with this month’s Marked Potential

Next up in our Marked Potential series is the Robinson Building at 10th and Market. Interior architect and designer Shila Griffith envisions a multi-screen documentary film theater complex and filmmaker workspace behind the scrolling, Modernist facade of the former women’s department store

Our annual review of significant Philadelphia buildings lost to demolition includes significant sites of gay, Jewish, and retail history along with the usual churches and industrial buildings

A Tiki bar soon will join in the Frankford Avenue renaissance. That may be Fishtown’s first Tiki bar, but as Rachel Hildebrandt explains, it’s hardly the first in Philadelphia, where we once had several Tiki bars at once

Wissahickon–the extreme lowest part of Lower Roxborough–moves from city to suburb and back again, in both Victorian and mid-century variations, in little more than a short trek up or down the hill. Join Steve Stofka as he probes this area with his ever-inquisitive eye

Ben Leech interviews the architects who will renovate the 1952 Mercantile Library on Chestnut Street, the long-boarded up building that Louis Mumford called one of the best examples of mid-century modern architecture in the nation

Forget the colonial city or the 19th century city, what happened to the muscular city of the mid-20th century?