The holidays are just around the corner, and what better way to show your love than by giving your favorite architecture nerd her very own Frank Lloyd Wright-designed, heart-shaped private island! AHALife, an online directory of some of the most amazing products in the world, is offering the amazing Petra Island as part of its AHA100 Series of the season’s most coveted gifts. (The price: a cool $20 million.) Only 50 miles away from Manhattan — or a mere 15 minute luxury helicopter ride — the island highlights Wright’s signature melding of modern design with nature. Read more!

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Photo: flickr user gerdragon

‘The World’ at Dubai and Azerbaijan’s floating super-skyscrapers have an unlikely precedent in the form of Bled Island, a tiny locus of urbanism stranded in the middle of the 1,380 meter-wide lake from which the isle takes its name. Slovenia’s only island, the site has been continuously inhabited since at least the 9th century when a pagan temple was (unknowingly) erected on the remains of prehistoric settlements dating from the 11th century BC. When the land came under Christian control, the temple was destroyed and replaced with a smaller structure, initiating a series of construction and revisions that would transform the island for centuries to follow. Continue.

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