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      Estalló una guerra cultural por las casas señoriales del Reino Unido. ¿Quién ganó?

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      Una batalla en torno a la historia de las casas de campo más preciadas del país ofrecía un vistazo al estado de ánimo nacional antes de unas elecciones clave.[Estamos en WhatsApp. Empieza a seguirnos ahora]Un cuadro en Dyrham House, una gran mansión en el suroeste de Inglaterra, ofrece una vista panorámica del puerto de Bridgetown, Barbados, con plantaciones de azúcar salpicadas a lo largo de una ladera.En otra habitación hay dos figuras talladas que representan a hombres negros arrodillados, sosteniendo sobre sus cabezas conchas de vieira. Están encadenados por los tobillos y el cuello.Estas obras pertenecieron a William Blathwayt, quien fue propietario de Dyrham a finales del siglo XVII y principios del XVIII y, como auditor general británico de las rentas de las plantaciones, supervisaba las ganancias que llegaban de las colonias.Explicar la historia de un lugar como Dyrham puede resultar polémico, como ha descubierto el National Trust, la organización benéfica de casi 130 años de antigüedad que gestiona muchas de las casas históricas más preciadas del Reino Unido.Después de que la organización renovó sus exposiciones para poner de relieve los vínculos entre decenas de sus propiedades y la explotación y la esclavitud de la época colonial, provocó la ira de algunos columnistas y académicos de derecha, que acusaron al fondo de ser “progre”, insinuaron que estaba presentando una visión“antibritánica” de la historia e iniciaron una campaña para revertir algunos de los cambios.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Philip Johnson’s Brick House Reopens After 15 Years

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      The architect Philip Johnson’s Glass House, a rectangular glass-and-steel residence set on a grassy shelf above a wooded bluff in New Canaan, Conn., has epitomized a certain East Coast ideal of midcentury elegance since its completion in 1949. Before becoming an architect at age 37, Johnson ran the architecture department at MoMA, and the spare, luminous building, which he inhabited for over half a century, embodies the Modernist International Style that he helped define in a landmark exhibition at the museum in 1932. The home also established Johnson himself as the paragon of a specific type of New York architect: erudite, absolutist in his refinement and formidable in his influence wielding, shaping careers, institutions and public opinion like few others in his field.But since the National Trust of Historic Preservation opened the Glass House to the public as a museum in 2007, visitors have discovered there’s more to the place than its namesake centerpiece. By the time Johnson died in 2005, the five acres he’d bought in 1946 had grown tenfold to encompass 14 structures, including experimental follies, a subterranean painting gallery and three wooden homes from earlier periods, including a shingled 18th-century dwelling that Johnson and his partner, the curator David Whitney, would use as a refuge in hot weather. For the past 15 years, however, a pivotal part of the estate has remained semi-concealed: Johnson’s guesthouse, known as the Brick House and situated just 80 feet from the site’s main attraction, has been closed to the public because of water damage. Now, after an extensive restoration and in time for the Glass House’s 75th anniversary, the building has finally been unveiled.The hallway has a granite floor and doubles as a gallery, displaying Brice Marden’s “Etchings to Rexroth” (1986), from the collection of Johnson and his partner, the curator David Whitney.Dean KaufmanJohnson considered the 1,728-square-foot Glass House and its 860-square-foot brick companion, which was built at the same time, two parts of a single home — one alluringly crystalline, the other introverted and opaque. He wrapped the smaller building entirely in iron-spotted red brick and positioned it facing the main house at a slight angle, with a gravel pathway crossing the courtyard between them. The structures are also linked below ground: Along with a bedroom, study, storage room and bathroom, the Brick House contains the unsightly mechanical equipment that supplies the Glass House with electricity and heat, enabling the larger building to maintain its aesthetic purity. Tellingly, Johnson placed the Brick House’s only windows — three big mahogany-framed portholes — on the building’s back side, facing away from his glass retreat. “I didn’t see why the guests should have a window looking out toward my house,” he said in an unpublished 1991 interview for the National Trust. “They can look their own way out to the hill.” But he and Whitney also often slept in the building when they didn’t have visitors.Ibram Lassaw’s welded bronze-and-steel work “Clouds of Magellan,” commissioned for the bedroom in 1953, hangs above the bed.Dean KaufmanThe Brick House is stern, squat and solid, its front interrupted only by a tall, centered black pinewood door. Even Johnson admitted it wasn’t much to look at, calling it “perfectly plain.” But if the exterior is unassuming, Johnson created an unexpected landscape of color, texture and fantastical detail inside. At one end of the bright entrance hall, which runs parallel to the front of the house, a door gives way to the building’s showpiece: a dim, sand-hued bedroom that is at once monastic, womblike and glamorous. Johnson — who never shied away from, as he put it in the 1991 interview, “deliberately copying whatever I felt like” — modeled it after a domed parlor in the early 19th-century London home of the English architect John Soane. Soane described the layered design of that room as “a succession of fanciful effects,’’ and Johnson deployed his own series of clever tricks. First, he built an off-white plaster pavilion inside the 10-by-26-foot room. A row of vaults seem to be supported by 14 superslim columns but are, in fact, suspended from the ceiling and give the room the sheltered quality of a cloister.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      What Makes a Society More Resilient? Frequent Hardship.

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      Comparing 30,000 years of human history, researchers found that surviving famine, war or climate change helps groups recover more quickly from future shocks.From the Roman Empire to the Maya civilization, history is filled with social collapses. Traditionally, historians have studied these downturns qualitatively, by diving into the twists and turns of individual societies.But scientists like Philip Riris have taken a broader approach, looking for enduring patterns of human behavior on a vaster scale of time and space. In a study published Wednesday, these methods allowed Dr. Riris and his colleagues to answer a profound question: Why are some societies more resilient than others?The study, published in the journal Nature, compared 16 societies scattered across the world, in places like the Yukon and the Australian outback. With powerful statistical models, the researchers analyzed 30,000 years of archaeological records, tracing the impact of wars, famines and climate change. They found that going through downturns enabled societies to get through future shocks faster. The more often a society went through them, the more resilient it eventually became.“Over time, you will suffer less, essentially,” said Dr. Riris, an archaeologist at Bournemouth University in England. “There tends not to be wholesale collapse.”The researchers tracked the history of societies by taking advantage of the way archaeologists tell time. Most organic material, whether it’s charcoal or mussel shells, contains trace amounts of radioactive carbon-14, which gradually breaks down over thousands of years. By measuring the carbon-14 left at an archaeological site, researchers can estimate its age.This approach can also track population changes. As human groups get bigger, they burn more wood, eat more food and leave behind more garbage, all of which can be dated. When those groups shrink, their sites become rarer.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      A New Law Would Remove Many Architectural Protections in Miami Beach

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      Lawmakers say preservationists held too much power over decisions on whether buildings should be demolished and what should be allowed to replace them.The oceanfront Eden Roc Hotel is an icon of Miami Modernist architecture, a style that epitomized the postwar glamour and grandeur of Miami Beach. Two turquoise panels wrap the white facade. The oval canister perched atop the building resembles a cruise ship’s funnel. Crooners like Frank Sinatra, Harry Belafonte, and Sammy Davis, Jr., stayed and played there.But a new Florida law could make it easier for hotels like the Eden Roc and other architectural icons along Miami Beach’s coastline to be demolished. The battle pits the pressures of development and climate change against the benefits of historical preservation, in a city that has long paved over its past and prizes the new, shiny, and glitzy.Supporters say the law addresses environmental and safety challenges of aging properties after the deadly 2021 collapse of the Champlain Towers South condo. But critics believe the legislation is a pretext to facilitate the demolition of historical buildings — ones that give Miami Beach its distinct look — to make way for high-rise luxury condos.The new law effectively strips Miami Beach Historic Preservation Board of its long-held power to say whether historic structures can be demolished and, if a structure is knocked down, to ensure that at least some elements of its design are preserved or replicated. “Let’s just bulldoze the past — that’s their idea,” said Daniel Ciraldo, the executive director of the nonprofit Miami Design Preservation League. “I don’t think we’ve seen such an attack on our local controls since the 1980s, back when the city first started to do historic preservation.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      DeSantis Drops Out, While Haley Is Still In

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      More from our inbox:Diverse Life ExperiencesSaving Landmarked Places of WorshipBooks as DecorationRon DeSantisNicole Craine for The New York TimesNikki Haley is the last woman standing in the Republicans’ presidential race, but she faces a tough challenge in toppling Donald J. Trump.Ruth Fremson/The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “DeSantis Decides to End Campaign for White House” (front page, Jan. 22):When I saw the news that Ron DeSantis was dropping out of the 2024 presidential race and endorsing Donald Trump, I felt a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. Not that I’m a fan of Mr. DeSantis; hardly, I’m not even a Republican. But, for the sake of our democracy, a part of me had hoped that Mr. DeSantis or Nikki Haley, or the two of them together, might have waged a distinct and spirited enough campaign to overcome the angry, populist, cultlike sway that Mr. Trump holds over G.O.P. voters.It’s becoming increasingly clear that both campaigns have fallen short. Meanwhile, a slew of Republican political leaders will continue to stick their heads in the sand about the dangers that Mr. Trump poses to the nation and instead endorse and proudly campaign for a man they know is not fit to be the leader of the free world.Watching all of this unfold is proving to be a grotesque and terrifying portrait of human behavior.Cody LyonBrooklynTo the Editor:As Ron DeSantis fades from the national scene after running one of the most incompetent presidential campaigns in memory, we should remember some of the damage he inflicted on his home state, Florida, to gain national attention.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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      Should Historic Buildings Give Way to New Housing?

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      More from our inbox:Moving the Needle on TrumpRussian vs. RussianI’m Off Social MediaA duplex in Canarsie, still standing, where Mr. Appelbaum’s grandparents lived for three decades.To the Editor:Re “Preservation Has Become the Enemy of Evolution,” by Binyamin Appelbaum (Opinion, Jan. 7):We must destroy New York in order to save it? And discard our history and heritage for expediency’s sake?New York City needs more, not less, historical memory. What we do not need is a return to the housing policies of Robert Moses.Mr. Appelbaum writes that much of Brooklyn Heights has been fossilized. Would he say that Paris has been “fossilized” because its city leaders preserve its buildings? There’s no other place like Brooklyn Heights in the United States. But there are countless other cities around the globe with soulless, interchangeable skyscrapers. We mustn’t sacrifice what makes New York unique and beautiful simply for new buildings and for uncreative solutions to pressing housing problems.We have lots of unused commercial and industrial buildings in the city that can be converted to housing. We have millions of square feet of office space that will never be used again, despite the desires of wealthy developers. The solution isn’t to destroy the homes that are already built and have been preserved.How the Russian Government Silences Wartime DissentA law making it illegal to discredit Russia’s army has ensnared thousands of Russians for even mild acts or statements against the war.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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      Matt Damon Joins Fight Over Upper West Side Church

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      The actor will appear in performances meant to benefit a group that wants to save West Park Presbyterian Church on the Upper West Side from demolition.Good morning. It’s Wednesday. Today we’ll look at how a campaign to save a church from demolition — despite church leaders wanting the building torn down — lined up the actor Matt Damon for a fund-raiser.Julia Nikhinson/Associated PressHow do you get a star like Matt Damon to appear in a benefit performance of a play in a church on the Upper West Side?“You ask him,” said Kenneth Lonergan, who wrote the play in question, “This Is Our Youth.”Damon will appear in a performance of “This Is Our Youth” on Nov. 16. The show is a fund-raiser for the Center at West Park, which leases the West Park Presbyterian Church, on West 86th Street at Amsterdam Avenue. Tickets start at $500. The top price for a second performance, on Nov. 17, will be $250, and there will be no fixed admission for some seats; those who attend can pay what they wish.Damon is the latest celebrity to support the center and its campaign, against the congregation’s wishes, to prevent the demolition of the Romanesque Revival-style church. The actors Mark Ruffalo and Wendell Pierce; the comedian Amy Schumer; and the rapper and actor Common have also gotten involved in the cause.Together, they are lending their boldface names to an effort to raise money for the center, including to make repairs to the building that are necessary so that the scaffolding and sidewalk shed that have long covered the property can be removed.Debby Hirshman, the center’s executive director, said the goal was to bring in more than $300,000 from the “This Is Our Youth” performances. That would be in addition to a new capital campaign meant to raise $2 million for repairs to the building — a sum that opponents of demolition say would cover the cost of work outlined in a recent report by an engineering consultant for the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission.A spokeswoman for the church challenged that analysis, calling it “a Band-Aid solution” that would not pay for interior work that is needed to satisfy fire safety rules and accessibility regulations, just as a lawyer for the center disputed a financial analysis done for the landmarks commission.That document said the building, in the hands of an owner other than the congregation, could not earn a reasonable return. Hirshman said she had met with church officials last summer and had offered to make the church “financially whole” if it withdrew a hardship application it filed with the landmarks commission last year.The application was a first step toward demolishing the building as part of a real estate deal that would give the congregation space in what would be a new apartment building on the site. The church — which was designated a city landmark, over the congregation’s objections, in 2010 — stands to receive $30 million from a developer it signed a binding contract with in 2022.Hirshman said church leaders had rejected her proposal.The center had offered earlier to buy the building; a spokesman for the church said that “none of the offers have been feasible or realistic, given the cost of repairs.” The spokeswoman also questioned the center’s “ongoing inability to raise sufficient funds” to pay for repairs.The landmarks commission has not scheduled a vote on the church’s application.As for Damon’s appearances in “This Is Our Youth” next week, Lonergan turned to him because Josh Hamilton, who had appeared in the original Off Broadway production, was unavailable. The rest of the cast was already set — Ruffalo, reprising his breakout role from 1996, and Missy Yager, along with the director Mark Brokaw. Ruffalo became involved with the center last year and even buttonholed Mayor Eric Adams at the Tribeca Film Festival to argue for saving the building.It helped that Damon and Lonergan knew each other, and that Damon knew the play: He appeared in a London production of it for two months in 2002.“I explained the situation to him and immediately he said, ‘I’m in,’ which is what I thought he would say if he was available,” Lonergan said, “and as a matter of fact, he had an apartment one block away from the church for a year or two, maybe. This is going back a ways.” He said Damon wanted to “keep what’s special about the neighborhood special.”WeatherEnjoy a mostly sunny sky today with high temperatures around the low 50s. In the evening, prepare for a chance of rain and temps near the high 40s.ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKINGIn effect until Friday (Veterans Day).The latest New York newsFlaco perching inside an East Village sculpture garden on Monday. His life on the loose could be entering a dangerous new phase.Jacqueline EmeryLocal newsFeathered fugitive: Flaco the Eurasian eagle-owl, whose escape from the Central Park Zoo captured the public’s attention, turned up in Manhattan’s East Village, about five miles from the wooded park area he had settled into since flying free nine months ago.Code of conduct: New Yorkers are reacquainting themselves with the unofficial subway rules — no eye contact; no stinky food — as the city rebounds from the Covid-19 pandemic.Sunny-day flooding: As high tide floods increase in some parts of the city, residents are asking themselves: When does a place become unlivable?ICYMI: Trump’s testimonyTakeaways: Former President Donald J. Trump took the witness stand in a Manhattan courtroom on Monday as he tried to preserve the business empire that made him famous. Here’s what we learned.Understanding Trump’s defense: Christopher M. Kise and Alina Habba, the two lawyers who joined the former president at the defense table, represent different aspects of what their client seeks in a defender.In South Brooklyn, a Democrat defeats an ex-DemocratAnna Watts for The New York TimesDemocrats held onto a City Council seat in Brooklyn that had shown signs of drifting away. Justin Brannan, a Democrat who is the Council’s powerful finance chairman, defeated his Republican opponent, Ari Kagan, according to The Associated Press.Both are sitting Council members who found themselves facing off in the same district because of redistricting. Kagan, a former radio and television host from Belarus who was elected as a Democrat in 2021, switched parties last year.On Tuesday, Brannan called his victory a triumph over “toxic tribalism” and promised to serve all constituents, regardless of their political affiliations.In another Brooklyn district, created to amplify the voices of Asian voters, the Democrat, Susan Zhuang, defeated Ying Tan, the Republican. Both candidates built their campaigns around the issues of crime, education and the quality of New York City life.Elsewhere in the city, many Democrats ran unopposed, including Yusef Salaam, one of the so-called Central Park Five defendants, Black and Latino men who were exonerated in 2002 in the rape and assault of a female jogger in Central Park 13 years earlier. He won a contested primary in Harlem this past summer.As Salaam prepared to give his victory speech on Tuesday, my colleague Jeffery C. Mays noted, it was not lost on him that former President Trump was facing multiple criminal trials. Trump had called for the reinstatement of the death penalty after Salaam’s arrest.“Karma is real, and we have to remember that,” Salaam said.METROPOLITAN diaryJob at Macy’sDear Diary:One thing I always wanted to do was work at Macy’s in New York City. I got the opportunity when things slowed down at my actual job and management asked for volunteers to take unpaid time off.I took a month, and my husband and I went to New York City. We found a short-term apartment and I applied for a job at Macy’s during the Christmas season. I did not say I only planned to work there a month.I was in my 50s at the time and I started working with a group of men and women who were much younger.I spent my first day learning how to operate the cash register and where everything in the store was. It was so exciting.When it was time for lunch, some of the younger women asked me to go to lunch with them at McDonald’s. Wow. Of course I went. They mostly spoke Spanish. I didn’t understand them, but I didn’t care.I couldn’t have been any more excited when the day was over and I clocked out and headed to the door. Outside, the young women yelled out to me: Come on, Alice. It’s this way to the subway.They wanted me to come with them, but I just said no, thank you. I lived right across the street.— Alice RedmondIllustrated by Agnes Lee. Send submissions here and read more Metropolitan Diary here.Glad we could get together here. See you tomorrow. — J.B.P.S. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword and Spelling Bee. You can find all our puzzles here.Kellina Moore and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at nytoday@nytimes.com.Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. More