THERE are many definitions of news, and none of them totally satisfactory. But in practice, news is apt to be what an editor thinks his readers will be interested in, out of all that is going on. For some editors this means serving up mostly politics, sports, crime and a smattering of foreign troubles. TIME has spent its 40 years trying to widen the definition of what's interesting, and is pleased to find other editors now reporting the news in science, medicine, religion and education that was once so widely ignored. The more others do it. the more TIME is stimulated to try to do it better.

But there is one important area of news where, outside the smaller and respected professional journals, TIME finds the field left largely to itself. This is in architecture. We are passing through one of the greatest building periods of all times (how many great buildings are being built is another matter). TIME has no section devoted to architecture but pays much attention to it. Art considers the esthetic impact of architecture, and celebrates the top practitioners; Business treats of architecture as it is reflected on the economically flourishing skyline; Modern Living explores the quirks and comforts of living in contemporary architecture. Our coverage has ranged from palaces to apartments, from skyscrapers to chapels. Over the years, TIME covers have covered the top newsmakers of the field, from Ralph Adams Cram, the Gothic worshiper, back in 1926. through Frank Lloyd Wright in 1938, to this week's cover on Minoru Yamasaki.

In color spreads we have directed attention to the best works of such gifted contemporaries as Mies van der Rohe, Breuer, Gropius, Saarinen, Rudolph, Belluschi and Nervi. Architects themselves seem highly mindful of TIME'S role in bringing architecture to a wider public. Gordon Bunshaft, the man who gave a lift to Manhattan's Park Avenue with his famous postwar Lever House, says. "There are times when we don't know whether we're working for a client or for TIME."

Senior Editor Cranston Jones, who is in charge of color projects for TIME, has written much about architecture for us, as well as three books on the subject. Art Editor Bruce Barton, who wrote the Le Corbusier cover story (May 5, 1961), this week takes up the work and personality of Yamasaki, who is trying to put back the beauty that he thinks Le Corbusier took out of architecture.

ART made another kind of news in Washington last week, and in two pages of fast-closing color in The Nation section, TIME shows a famous lady, greeted by some well-known and scrutable smiles.

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