Architecture

Benito Mussolini, who ruled Fascist Italy from 1922 to 1943, had ambitious plans for the nation's capital. In the historic center he sought to uncover the remains of Imperial Rome, on which he modeled his new Italian empire, opening massive archaeological works and at the same time destroying many of the city's medieval landmarks. Outside the center Il Duce ordered the construction of whole districts in a new architectural vernacular that melded Roman classicism with stream-lined modernism.

A Santa Monica architect known for his high-rise designs is working on what may be the ultimate "spec" building -- a 224-story skyscraper with green ambitions that would be the tallest structure in the world. The tower is envisioned for a man-made island in Abu Dhabi, if leaders of the oil-rich emirate decide they want to make a statement to rest of the world and perhaps one-up neighboring Dubai. A conceptual design for the $3.5-billion project in the United Arab Emirates is under consideration by an Abu Dhabi planning committee, said Tommy Landau, the architect who created the design and is part of an unusual team of U.S. real estate players trying to get the ambitious project launched.

Along the wide, straight Via dei Fori Imperiali near the Colosseum, sightseers often stop to look at a series of maps showing the growth of the Roman Empire: just a dot on the west coast of the Italian peninsula in the 8th century BC, larger in the next two panels, then at its most expansive in the fourth tablet when the Roman world stretched from Spain to Mesopotamia. Nothing remains of the fifth map placed here in 1936 to commemorate Italy's conquest of Ethiopia under the direction of Benito Mussolini.

Radhika Bhalla dreamed of empowering women in her native India by designing an attractive, multipurpose bicycle cart made of inexpensive, easily obtained local materials. At present, many rural Indian women must haul heavy loads of firewood and flour bags by hand, on foot. Bhalla calculates that the new carts could save up to five hours of walking per day. That, in turn, could help win over husbands who traditionally don't like to see their womenfolk getting too mobile and independent.

Sonny Astani walked into a Westwood movie theater in 1985 and saw the film that changed his life: "Blade Runner," the science-fiction tale that imagined a dystopian Los Angeles where jet-powered cars zoom past skyscrapers covered with enormous, cinematic advertisements. Decades later, the Iranian-born businessman is determined to bring some of those futuristic images to life. His plan? Attach an animated sign 14-stories tall on the 33-story condominium project he is building in downtown L.A.

Frank Lloyd Wright had a radical idea for low-cost construction when Alice Millard, a rare-book dealer and antiques collector, commissioned him to design a house in Pasadena. He would use concrete blocks, "the cheapest (and ugliest) thing in the building world," the architect wrote in his autobiography. "Why not see what could be done with that gutter-rat?"

San Miguel de Allende, Mexico MICHELE CONNOR calls her ranch "a hunting lodge where there's no hunting," 20 acres greened by fields of alfalfa and shared with six dogs, 10 horses, a dozen sheep and a couple of burros, not to mention the chickens, geese and peacocks. It's a scene that reminds Connor of childhood, when she would play with dolls and imagine an escape far from the city. "I would make little corrals and play with little animals," Connor says. "That was my fantasy.

Moscow's $4-billion Crystal Island development won preliminary planning approval during the week between Christmas and New Year's Day, just as Russians were beginning to need a glittering distraction from short, bleak winter days. Eye-popping images of the hugely ambitious project, designed for a site on the Moscow River by the British architect Norman Foster, more than fit the bill.

EVEN in Silver Lake, where the prevailing architectural style is Anything Goes, the Priuses are slowing down to check out that house on Elevado Street. After 10 months of renovations, what had been a dreary Spanish-style four-plex is now a one-man Moroccan fantasy fronted by hand-forged ironwork, glowing mosaic fountains and a turret-like entrance topped with a mural of trumpeting elephants. What passersby may not know is that the magic carpet ride continues inside.

RESTAURANT diners -- when they can make themselves heard above the blaring music from a chef's iPod playlist, the clatters and shouts from an open kitchen, and the roar of the cocktail drinkers in an adjacent lounge -- are talking about restaurant noise these days more than the food. And the sound of that is finally reaching management ears.