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Three weeks after the category four Hurricane Maria struck Puerto Rico on 20 September, devastating the US Island, knocking out power and killing an as yet undetermined number of residents, local museums are back to work and helping with community relief efforts. — The Art Newspaper
While the U.S. President spent his visit in double-hurricane-devastated Puerto Rico tossing rolls of paper towels into the crowd like t-shirts at a Knicks game, the island's museums are busy assessing the damage and getting their institutions reopened to the public. View full entry
The film academy on Wednesday drummed up excitement for its forthcoming museum on the Miracle Mile, releasing a batch of new renderings [...]
Pritzker-Prize winner Renzo Piano and architecture firm Gensler are restoring and reworking the Streamline Moderne-style department store built in 1939 to house a 288-seat cinematheque and spaces for exhibitions, an entire floor devoted to an “Oscars experience,” restaurants, and special events.
— Curbed LA
Sitting right next to Renzo Piano's other LA projects, the expansion buildings for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the new — and not entirely uncontroversial — film academy complex on Wilshire Boulevard is further coming along. While construction of the 130-foot tall 'bubble' theater... View full entry
The French architect Jean Nouvel has defended his Louvre museum in Abu Dhabi, a massive domed complex that opens in November, from accusations it was built by exploited and abused migrant workers. [...]
In an interview as the finishing touches are put to the colossal construction, the architect dismissed accusations over exploited workers as an “old question” and insisted conditions for those building the museum were better than for some employed in Europe.
— The Guardian
"A 2015 a Human Rights Watch report," The Guardian explains, "suggested migrants working on the Louvre museum and neighbouring Guggenheim, part of a £18bn 'cultural hub' on Saadiyat Island in Abu Dhabi, were subjected to conditions amounting to forced labour including summary arrest and... View full entry
Street art is the ultimate form of democracy according to the curators of the new Museum for Urban Contemporary Art that has just opened in Berlin. But does street art belong in exhibition halls? [...]
Construction for the Urban Nation Museum of Urban Contemporary Art began in May 2016. A late-19th century house in the Berlin district of Schöneberg was redesigned by German architecture studio Graft.
— Deutsche Welle
Image: Graft, via dw.com. In Deutsche Welle's interview with Yasha Young, the artistic director of the new Museum for Urban Contemporary Art, Young defends the need for a permanent home for street art: "Yes, street art belongs to the street and should stay there. The label "Museum for Street Art,"... View full entry
Hurricane Irma, now downgraded to a tropical depression, wrecked havoc across the Caribbean this weekend and killed at least 42 people, but museums in Florida were mostly spared from any large-scale destruction, according to early reports. Following evacuations ordered last week, residents are slowly returning to their homes and some institutions plan to reopen this week. — The Art Newspaper
Just like museums in the greater Houston area rushed to reopen again last week after Hurricane Harvey to reestablish a certain sense of civic normalcy, now institutions in Florida are busy assessing damage from Hurricane Irma, getting started on repairs, and reopening to the public. The Pérez Art... View full entry
As aid workers and Texans begin to take stock of the destruction wrought by Hurricane Harvey, museums across Houston, the fourth biggest city in the country and one of the areas hardest hit by the storm, are starting to reopen.
Gary Tinterow, the director of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH), announced Friday that the institution would partially reopen on Tuesday 5 September with free admission through Thursday, 7 September. He offered the museum “as a place for reflection and renewal.”
— The Art Newspaper
While a leisurely visit to the museum may not be on the minds right now of Houston residents hit the hardest by Hurricane Harvey, reopening its cultural institutions is an important first step for the city to start the long process of recovery and breathe new life into the civic spirit. View full entry
The Palestinian Museum opens its inaugural exhibition this weekend focusing on the holy city of Jerusalem, a city that both Israel and Palestine claim as their capital. The wide-ranging, overtly political show focuses on the realities of living in Jerusalem as well as the idea that despite being seen as the original global city, it also serves an example of how globalization has failed worldwide. — The Arts Newspaper
The Palestinian Museum, located in Birzeit, Palestine’s West Bank, opened last May. Back then, however, the $24 million structure designed by Heneghan Peng Architects had no exhibits to show due to a sudden resignation of the museum's former director. Its first show, Jerusalem Lives (Tahya Al... View full entry
Museum creation has increasingly become a major cultural export for countries. The controversial Louvre Abu Dhabi is slated to open later this year and the Guggenheim has made attempts in recent years to open up satellite museums in both Helsinki and Abu Dhabi, to name a few. Now, the... View full entry
Mr Pouille posted pictures of the museum's exterior, including its 7,000-tonne dome, which shelters many of the museum's gallery spaces while creating a microclimate for its internal plaza areas.
They also show the Louvre Abu Dhabi's concrete beach, whose steps have been designed to act as an amphitheater-like public gathering space and viewing platform, just opposite the main museum complex.
— The National
Ludovic Pouille, the social media-savvy French ambassador to the UAE, has posted photos from his recent visit of Jean Nouvel-designed Louvre Abu Dhabi on Twitter. The opening of the museum is... View full entry
The proposed building will contain exhibition space on the ground floor and second floor, classrooms between the second and third floor, a theater on the third floor and offices between the fourth and sixth floors. There will also be an event space on the second floor and an aquarium room on the fifth floor. — Real Estate Weekly
The proposed $325 million six-story expansion won the Landmarks Commission’s approval in October 2016. Designed by Studio Gang, the building will be located along Columbus Avenue on the museum’s rear grounds near West 79th Street. The majority of the 218,000-square-foot Gilder Center will be... View full entry
As government officials in Moscow earmark Constructivist buildings for demolition in a massive project to relocate up to 1.6 million of the city’s residents, a non-profit museum dedicated to preserving Russia’s avant-garde architecture has opened in the Shabolovka neighbourhood. — The Art Newspaper
The new Avant-Garde Museum is located in Na Shabolovke Gallery, which is a part of Khavsko-Shabolovsky housing complex built in the late 1920s by the rationalist Asnova (Association of New Architects). It is part of a district with a rich heritage of early Soviet architecture and design... View full entry
[...] Art Fund Museum of the Year is awarded annually to one outstanding museum, which, in the opinion of the judges, has shown exceptional imagination, innovation and achievement across the preceding 12 months.
The Hepworth Wakefield was selected as winner of the £100,000 prize from a group of five finalists, also including Lapworth Museum of Geology (Birmingham), National Heritage Centre for Horseracing & Sporting Art (Newmarket), Sir John Soane’s Museum (London) and Tate Modern (London).
— artfund.org
Photo: Iwan Baan."The Hepworth Wakefield has been a powerful force of energy from the moment it opened in 2011, but it has just kept growing in reach and impact ever since," said Art Fund director Stephen Deuchar. "David Chipperfield’s building has proved a perfect stage – both for the display... View full entry
Launched this year, The Design Prize is an annual awards program, organised by the media outlets designboom and Abitare under the auspices of the City of Milan. Aric Chen, a lead curator for Design and Architecture at one of the world's largest visual art museum, M+ in Hong Kong has been named... View full entry
The bold addition features the world's first all-porcelain public courtyard, paved with 11,000 handmade porcelain tiles in 15 different patterns. The tiles were manufactured by Koninklijke Tichelaar Makkum, the Netherlands' oldest registered company, established in 1572. — CNN
After six years of construction, the Exhibition Road Quarter, AL_A-designed courtyard space opened yesterday in London's Victoria and Albert Museum, adding 11,840 square feet of column-free flexible gallery space to the museum to help accommodate the V&A's headline exhibitions. Intended as a... View full entry
Today, on June 27, 2017, leaders from the Norton Museum of Art and Gilbane Building Company along with museum's staff and more than 100 construction workers attended a topping off ceremony for the museum’s $100 million expansion project designed by Foster + Partners. “We are thrilled to... View full entry
