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Stately, elegant, reflective: these adjectives have largely described the work of British architect David Chipperfield, whose structures tend to invite contemplation and pause before hot take Instagramming. His selection as the architect of the West Bund Art Museum in the new cultural center... View full entry
“Zumthor has this archaic way of looking at architecture, but in a very contemporary way: his buildings are very durable,” [Sam Keller, director of the Fondation Beyeler,] said. “They are a little out of time and fashion, and we liked that.” — The New York Times
Last month, Peter Zumthor unveiled his winning scheme for the expansion of the Renzo Piano-designed Fondation Beyeler museum in Riehen, near Basel. In this recent New York Times article, Zumthor and Beyeler Director Sam Keller share more commentary and their aspirations for the milestone expansion. View full entry
Alejandro Aravena's Santiago firm ELEMENTAL had the winning concept for the Qatar Art Mill Design Competition. Launched by Qatar Museums in 2015, the three-stage competition sought the architect who will convert an approximately 1 million square-foot flour mill into a new waterfront art museum for Doha Bay...“The [winning] concept design was praised by the international jury as ‘a serene artwork...” — Bustler
Elemental Art Mill Concept Design. Image © Qatar Museums and Malcolm Reading Consultants.Chosen from eight top-notch finalists, Elemental was inspired by the iconic “rhythmic monumental grain silos” of the original Flour Mills that formerly occupied the site.Find out more on Bustler. View full entry
After being unanimously chosen out of 11 renowned architecture firms, Peter Zumthor presented his vision for the expansion project of the reputable Fondation Beyeler Museum in Riehen, Basel. Joining the original Renzo Piano-designed museum building, the new expansion will provide more room for the... View full entry
The museum is not a singular or path-breaking work of architecture; its design goals have more to do with manipulating light and shadow and with physical substance [...]
Yet taken as a whole the museum offers a range of encouraging signs about the priorities of architecture’s up-and-coming generation. These include a genuine interest in shifting definitions of public space in a digital age and — most important of all — a preference for measured and layered effects over operatic ones.
— Christopher Hawthorne - latimes.com
UC Davis' new Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of art opened in November, and will function as a teaching museum with spaces for studios, galleries, and classrooms, including a courtyard for performances and installations.According to Hawthorne, SO-IL's design (done in collaboration Karl... View full entry
Beirut is to get a new modern art museum with a design inspired by Italian campaniles and Arabic minarets.
BeMA, the Beirut Museum of Art, will feature a slender tower rising 124 metres into the sky, according to designs by the winner of an architectural competition revealed on Thursday.
— the Guardian
An international jury has selected the Paris-based Lebanese architect Hala Wardé to oversee the complex on what the project backers describe as “a symbolically charged site that once marked the dividing lines in the Lebanese civil war”.For more from Lebanon and the greater MENA region:One... View full entry
For all of the dubious attention attracted by the “Bilbao Effect” theory [...] a more prosaic, and arguably more important aspect of museum location has received little attention: not which city a museum is built in, but where in that city. Locations that would once have seemed inevitable, such as Chicago parkland, are hugely contentious in the 2000s, while locations previously unthinkable in that year – an abandoned lumbermill in Bilbao [...] – are now commonplace. — theguardian.com
Related stories in the Archinect news:Embattled Lucas Museum may move to S.F.'s Treasure IslandLawsuit against Lucas Museum holds off (for now)‘Museum directors hated Bilbao’ View full entry
From the outside, not much has changed. After a three-year, $69m renovation, the East Building of the National Gallery of Art (NGA) in Washington, DC, looks about the same as it did when it first opened in June 1978. [...]
Step inside and the differences become clear. The gallery, which reopens to the public on 30 September, has managed to carve out more than 12,250 sq. ft of additional exhibition space without expanding its physical footprint.
— theartnewspaper.com
↑ I.M. Pei, who designed the East Building, on the structure's original opening day, June 1, 1978. Photo © Dennis Brack/Black Star. National Gallery of Art, Washington, Gallery ArchivesRelated stories in the Archinect news:Louvre director plans its grand revampPei Cobb Freed faces lawsuit... View full entry
What makes a museum building successful? Until the arrival of Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim in Bilbao in 1997, this question might have been almost exclusively focused on the best environments in which to view art. But the Guggenheim’s phenomenal success, which allowed the Basque government to recoup the construction costs within three years, moved the debate on to issues of branding and statement architecture.
Now the discussion has moved on again.
— theartnewspaper.com
Related stories in the Archinect news:Archinect's critical round-up of Snøhetta's SFMOMA additionOMA's Pierre Lassonde Pavilion in Quebec will finally open tomorrowFirst look inside Tate Modern's new Extension View full entry
After winning the competition way back in July 2009, OMA's Pierre Lassonde Pavilion is ready to make its public debut tomorrow. Nestled within Quebec City's 17th-century architecture and located at the historic National Battlefields Park, the Pavilion is the shiny new kid on the block with its... View full entry
The Office for Metropolitan Architecture...has been chosen to design the Albright-Knox Art Gallery’s first major expansion in more than 50 years...The comparatively delicate and more budget-conscious Albright-Knox expansion project, which is expected to cost about $60 million, will unfold on a small but famous plot of public parkland and will be attempt to fuse the architectural styles of three centuries. — The Buffalo News
More on Archinect:Albright-Knox Gallery announces short list of firms for $80m expansion: Snøhetta, BIG, OMA, wHY, Allied WorksShohei Shigematsu of OMA transforms the Met for the spring Costume Institute exhibitA tour of OMA's Pierre Lassonde Pavilion View full entry
Who better to master plan the campus of the The Williams College Department of Art and Museum of Art than daily watercolorist (and architect) Steven Holl? In addition to expanding William College's art presence in the region, the study's goals include shaping the campus space to connect interior... View full entry
To those concerned about the renovation of the Hood Museum of Art, the situation is charged with paradox: The architects Billie Tsien and Tod Williams, who protested the Museum of Modern Art’s dismantling of the Folk Art Museum they designed in Manhattan, are now transforming the Hood, an award-winning museum designed by Charles Moore [...].
“It’s almost as if they were getting revenge for what MoMA did to their Folk Art Museum [...] It’s totally insensitive to the Moore building.”
— nytimes.com
Tod Williams and Billie Tsien previously in the Archinect news:"Starts with me, ends with us": A conversation with Tod Williams and Billie Tsien on Archinect Sessions Episode #22Tod Williams and Billie Tsien presented with National Medal of Arts by President ObamaTod Williams & Billie Tsien... View full entry
Deborah Berke’s appointment last year as the first female dean of the Yale School of Architecture might have brought her into the limelight, but the architect and interior designer had already been getting attention for her work on 21c Museum Hotels, a small chain of boutique properties doubling as art galleries. [...]
In old buildings, you’re taking what you find and complementing that with the architecture and design of today.
— nytimes.com
More Deborah Berke stories in the Archinect news:Deborah Berke named Dean of Yale School of Architecture, will succeed Robert A.M. Stern in 2016Deborah Berke's design for new Cummins distribution HQ is unveiledIt's Deborah Berke for downtown Naptown!New York Architect Deborah Berke Selected for... View full entry
A ceremonial groundbreaking on February 6 marked the official kick off for construction of the ambitious Norton Museum of Art expansion in West Palm Beach, Florida. The event went hand-in-hand with the annual gala later that day celebrating the Museum’s 75th anniversary. Lord Foster, design... View full entry
