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The new museum won’t be defined by architectural glamour or by a market-vetted collection, though it may have these. Structurally porous and perpetually in progress...where walls are dissolvable, access is open, and art is invited to tell us who we are as an arrogant, exclusionary but possibly teachable culture — is still awaited — NYT
15 years into the new millennium, Holland Cotter outlines the need for a new version, for the 21st century, museum. She begins by criticizing the Bilbao era, and the entities resulting from a "love of gigantism in architecture and art". Then goes on to outline the possibilities of... View full entry
The Milwaukee Art Museum is due to reopen on 24 November after a 14-month, $34m renovation that brings the institution back from the brink. When the museum made the unorthodox decision to begin planning an expansion at the height of the recession in 2009, mould flourished, floors buckled and ceilings leaked in the two buildings that housed the permanent collection. [...]
Roberts says: “People who know our museum will not believe that this is the same museum.”
— theartnewspaper.com
Related news on Archinect:Private money attracts big-name architects to design new museums in BeirutLeading up to its September-20 opening, Christopher Hawthorne reviews the new Broad museumA black museum for "The White City of the North": Moreau Kusunoki Architectes selected to design Guggenheim... View full entry
A raft of museums, most backed by private money, are springing up in what is, for many, an unlikely cultural hub: Beirut, the capital of Lebanon [...]
The design competition launched on 1 October; the architect Zaha Hadid is on the jury along with Hans Ulrich Obrist and Julia Peyton-Jones of London's Serpentine Galleries.
Salamé, who founded the Aïshti fashion chain, invested $100m in funding a contemporary art museum, designed by the British architect David Adjaye, in Jal El Dib [...].
— theartnewspaper.com
Opinions about the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art ranged from excitement to distaste as residents got their first chance to speak about the proposed addition to the lakefront at two public hearings this week. [...]
The Chicago Park District sponsored the hearings Tuesday and Wednesday to discuss museum plans for architecture, landscaping and traffic.
— chicagotribune.com
Previously on Archinect:George Lucas open to moving his museum to Los Angeles if Chicago isn't working outLucas museum faces lawsuit from Friends of the ParksHow the Lucas Museum Design Will Change Chicago's Lakefront - Rendering Reveals View full entry
The scaffolding is off the Petersen Automotive Museum on Mid-Wilshire, and even though the building isn't yet open to the public, the reactions have been passionate.
"The New Look of the Petersen Automotive Museum is Really Really Bad," trumpeted a headline in Curbed. (The story, by Marissa Gluck, went on to describe the building as "the Guy Fieri of buildings: obnoxious, loud, and, ultimately, sure to be inexplicably embraced by the public.")
— latimes.com
Los Angeles is enjoying its fair share of museum-related news these days:The Broad Museum opens its doors for a look beyond the veilArchinect's critical round-up of LACMA's Frank Gehry exhibitionArchinect's critical round-up of Los Angeles' Broad Museum View full entry
The elements of the Broad that have been most closely scrutinized or most often reworked, in fact, are the most uneven. It is only in the relative shadows — in the peripheral or easily overlooked spaces, or in the rooms added or enlarged late in the design process — that the architecture of the museum really comes to life. — latimes.com
More on The Broad on Archinect:What makes an artless museum?So what's new at the Broad?DS+R's Broad Museum set to open on Sept. 20, with a Feb. 15 previewIs The Broad Museum's newly unveiled facade living up to its renderings? View full entry
Many have challenged the logic of a Swiss building in Los Angeles [...]
In a sense, all of the criticisms can be boiled down to a single accusation: quality architecture does not belong in Los Angeles. [...]
Contextualism in Los Angeles requires more innovation than matching roof heights or aligning cornices; its ecology is one of large and oversized cultural objects that act as signposts amid sprawl.
— lareviewofbooks.org
Situating LACMA in "master builder" Peter Zumthor's career overall, architects Sharon Johnston and Mark Lee (of the LA-based firm Johnston Marklee) discuss what distinguishes his work in a city with a somewhat confused attitude towards icons and context.More on Zumthor's LACMA:Is Zumthor's... View full entry
The neighborhood — a central district that was dismantled by the Nazis, battered by Allied bombs and radically reconfigured by postwar architects — has foiled urban planners, exasperated patrons of the arts and demoralized generations of Berliners intent on seeing their city made once more into a cohesive whole. [...]
Many are hoping that all that strife is in the past now that a new museum of modern art will be built in the much-maligned arts quarter.
— nytimes.com
In recent Berlin news on Archinect: Berlin's world-class museums struggle to build up excitementBerlin lists communist-era towers of Alexanderplatz as historical monuments; Gehry high-rise still happeningHerzog & de Meuron to redevelop Berlin’s infamous Tacheles cultural center; locals fear... View full entry
The architect behind the new Jack the Ripper museum in east London has said he was duped over the purpose of the project, after what was billed as a museum of women’s history became an attraction about Britain’s most notorious murderer of women. [...]
"We really ran with it. We did it at a bargain-basement fee, at cost price because we thought it was a great thing to do."
"You do rely on the moral fibre of your client but you should also be able to rely on the planning system"
— theguardian.com
Dedicated to traditional climbing, the museum is first of all an extraordinary overlook: the volumes that protrude from the ground, like four large eyes wide open on a majestic landscape, seem to emerge from the earth’s bowels to invite us to admire the Alpine chains around, from the Zillertal to the Ortles to the Dolomites. — inexhibit.com
A tip of the hat to Riccardo Bianchini, who posted in the forums earlier this week some photos from the press opening of Zaha Hadid's Messner Mountain Museum in Plan de Corones, Italy. Named after the famous mountaineer, Reinhold Messner, the museum is the final of six museums planned by... View full entry
As far as major cities go, few other places are in possession of so many treasures that are so poorly exhibited as Berlin. It's as though cultural institutions here go out of their way to keep people from visiting. [...]
The city is undeniably home to diverse, valuable and unique museum collections, but they aren't helping the city as much as they should be.
— spiegel.de
In the SPIEGEL article's comment section, reader nsmith compares the museum situation in Berlin with New York and raises a word of caution: "I read this article and I am envious. In New York City, it's almost impossible to get into any of the major Museums on any given... View full entry
Major public cultural institutions in Greece are on the point of collapse, say leading Greek art professionals, as concerns mount that the country faces insolvency after 61% of the population rejected bailout proposals earlier this week made by international creditors. — theartnewspaper.com
Read also: Architecture in crisis: reports from Greece View full entry
Since opening in 1968, the Studio Museum in Harlem has had to make do with difficult homes. Originally operating out of a rented loft, the museum moved into a roomier early 20th century commercial space, renovated by J. Max Bond, Jr., in 1982. But despite further renovations, the building's age... View full entry
One year and 1,715 entries later, the Guggenheim Helsinki Design Competition has selected Paris-based Moreau Kusunoki Architectes as the grand-prize winners today for their design, "Art in the City". In recent years, the Foundation's plans for building a new Guggenheim in Helsinki prompted... View full entry
“Money is not an issue here” is the motto that leaps out at you in both the Prada and Vuitton Foundation museums, although in Paris it is thrown into high relief on the building’s facade by the almost vulgar silver logo of Louis Vuitton—the star company in the LVMH group. — The Art Newspaper
