The Museo Universidad de Navarra, a brand new gallery designed by the renowned Rafael Moneo, may lead to a stampede of art lovers every bit as important to Pamplona as the running of the bulls [...]

The architect is Rafael Moneo, a Pritzker prizewinner and native of Navarre province. [...]

If the architecture of the new gallery is not as eye-catching as Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim, the collection is more impressive [...]. — theguardian.com

As the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach, Florida, prepares to break ground on its Foster + Partners—designed expansion in 2016, the institution has launched the second phase of its capital campaign, which has already raised nearly $34 million, more than half of the museum's $60 million goal. [...]

"Foster + Partners' plan pays homage to the Museum's past by restoring the clarity and symmetry of the original building, but also looks to its future as a leading museum in Florida" [...] — news.artnet.com

Buoyed by some of the largest donations in the city's history, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston will unveil a $450 million project today that envisions its campus as the cultural heart of the city. [...]

The project, by Steven Holl Architects, is the most exciting in the institution's 90-year history, board chairman Richard Kinder said. The plan, named the Fayez S. Sarofim Campus, is so transformational that in five years Houstonians might not recognize the 1000 block of Bissonnet. — chron.com

From the opening of the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris in October to the construction of The Broad in Los Angeles now set to open this autumn, the model of the single-donor museum is thriving. [...] what will happen to these new institutions on the death of the founder or the decline in their collecting activity. [...]

To what extent have these museum founders made plans to ensure the vitality and flexibility of their prized institutions beyond their own lifetimes? — theartnewspaper.com

Critics have argued that big arts-building investments are vanity projects, or that private donors should finance community arts organizations or scholarships instead. — NYT

After a $91m, three-year renovation, the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum is due to reopen on Friday, 12 December.

[...] the firms Gluckman Mayner, Beyer Blinder Belle and Diller Scofidio + Renfro—moved the museum’s offices and research library, previously on the third floor, into the adjacent Miller-Fox townhouses, which had been used for storage. In the offices’ place, they built the Cooper Hewitt’s first open-plan galleries. — theartnewspaper.com

Until now the Amsterdam museum has usually presented its Van Goghs in a simple chronological sequence, set against white walls. This display originally seemed appropriate for the building’s architecture, a series of stark white galleries designed by Gerrit Rietveld, the leading Modernist architect of the De Stijl movement. The white-cube spaces have now been transformed by coloured walls, varying according to the artist's different periods [...]. — theartnewspaper.com

The Whitney Museum of American Art announced today that it will open its new home in Chelsea on 1 May 2015. With double the exhibition space of its "old" Marcel Breuer-designed building, the museum will be able to show far more of its collection of Modern and contemporary American art in its Renzo Piano-designed new space in the Meatpacking District. [...]

Weinberg told us that Piano saved the institution from making one decision that it would have lived to regret. — theartnewspaper.com

The Board of Supervisors has approved a road map for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art as it plans a $600-million makeover that would tear down and rebuild most of its Miracle Mile campus [...].

If there are no serious bumps in the road ahead, the plan would yield a streamlined, curving 410,000-square-foot new museum building designed by Swiss architect Peter Zumthor that would open in 2023, spanning Wilshire Boulevard with an enclosed bridge that doubles as gallery space. — latimes.com

As the recipient of Design Miami/’s inaugural Design Visionary award this month, Marino has been celebrated for decades for forward-thinking designs that are the perfect blend of art, fashion and architectural design. “He is a true modernist character [...]” internationally renowned curator Jérôme Sans tells BLOUIN Lifestyle. Sans is curating “One Way: Peter Marino,” an exhibition at the Bass Museum of Art that explores the renowned American architect’s multifaceted relationship with art. — blouinartinfo.com

When we last checked in with Eli Broad’s eponymous downtown museum, its fall 2014 debut had been pushed back to some time in 2015. Today it was announced that the institution will open in fall 2015, although no precise date was given. [...]

The multi-story building, designed Diller Scofidio + Renfro, is still in the midst of construction. When it opens it will join two MOCA facilities and the Japanese American National Museum, making the northern end of downtown something of a museum hub. — lamag.com

Oslo’s city council approved a plan for a new Munch Museum on the waterfront in a vote on 22 October. A new building designed by the architecture firm Herreros will be constructed at a cost of 2.8m Norwegian kroner. [...]

The long-delayed project has hit a number of political hurdles since the architects were first chosen in a competition in 2009. Some critics feared the dramatic design [...] would deprive the city’s relatively new landmark opera building of the attention it deserves. — theartnewspaper.com

The Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York, is preparing to launch its first major expansion effort in more than 50 years. [...]

In 2012, the board commissioned the architectural firm Snøhetta to produce a master plan for future growth, but the details of this project have remained under wraps. Museum leaders told the Buffalo News that they are interested in holding an architectural competition for design proposals following their meetings with the public. — theartnewspaper.com

The Garage Museum of Contemporary Art announced yesterday that its forthcoming permanent home inside the Soviet-era eatery in the capital’s central Gorky Park is due to open in June 2015. [...]

And Rem Koolhaas, who was tasked with transforming the abandoned restaurant's ruin for the museum, is leaving it largely untouched. — blouinartinfo.com

The conceptual storefront Prada Marfa, 2005, by Elmgreen & Dragset, has a new lease on life. The Texas Department of Transportation reached an agreement last week with the foundation Ballroom Marfa to preserve the sculpture after nearly one year of negotiations. The government threatened to shut down the work because it could be considered an illegal roadside advertisement under state law. [...] the foundation plans to lease the land underneath Prada Marfa and register it as an art museum. — theartnewspaper.com