“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

Dasha Zhukova’s Garage Museum for Contemporary Art is due to open the doors of its new $27m home in Gorky Park to invited guests on 10 June and the public two days later. The museum is housed in a Soviet-era pavilion that has been converted by the Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas [...].

In another riff on the building’s architecture, Garage will be hosting a conference in October on Soviet Modernism, a project of the Austrian curator Georg Schöllhammer [...]. — The Art Newspaper

In over 140 years of making glass, [...] Corning Inc. has also established a reputation for commissioning first-rate works of architecture at its home base in this small city in the Finger Lakes region of New York. [...]

And now there’s a Contemporary Art + Design Wing by Thomas Phifer and Partners. Mr. Phifer is a New York architect whose intensely crafted minimalist sensibility comes as close as any American architect has to a Japanese aesthetic. — wsj.com

As the museum turns 50 this year and debate continues about LACMA Director Michael Govan's plan to replace the Pereira buildings (and a later addition by Hugh Hardy) with a giant new wing by Swiss architect Peter Zumthor, it's worth remembering how the original LACMA campus was greeted — as well as a few things about the Los Angeles into which it was born. — latimes.com

After a not-so-ideal turnout in its first run in 2014, The Museum of Fine Arts Budapest and the Városliget Zrt's Liget Budapest Design Competition 2.0 is a stark contrast! A few months after the architects for three of the development's buildings were announced, Snøhetta and SANAA tied for first prize for Budapest's [...] National Gallery and Ludwig Museum. However, it seems that the ultimate winning proposal is yet to be chosen between the two, after the jury meets with both teams. — bustler.net

The remains of a nearly 1,600-year-old basilica that was discovered at the beginning of last year under Lake İznik in the northwestern province of Bursa is now set to become an underwater museum. 

The underwater museum project, approved by the Culture and Tourism Ministry, will be carried out by the Bursa Metropolitan Municipality, the sponsor of the project. [...]

The discovery of the basilica was named as one of top 10 discoveries of 2014 by the Ar-chaeological Institute of America. — hurriyetdailynews.com

The architect David Chipperfield is at the centre of an extraordinary row over Milan’s new €60m (£44m) Museum of Culture, a building he has designed and now disowned after accusing officials of skimping on flooring materials.

The resulting “floor war” – as locals have dubbed the stand off – has led the British architect, famous for the Neues Museum in Berlin and China’s Liangzhu Culture Museum, to demand that his name be removed from the project. — independent.co.uk

The galleries are immense, the Renzo Piano design is arresting and the views of the Hudson River are expansive. As it prepares to open its new $422 million Lower Manhattan home on May 1, the Whitney Museum of American Art is pulsing with anticipation as it plans the inaugural events, including a neighborhood block party.

But behind the scenes the museum is also preparing for the challenge of paying to operate a building that is three times as large as the old one. — nytimes.com

For Málaga’s mayor, Francisco de la Torre, the rebirth of Hotel Miramar is a sign that his €100m gamble on rebranding the city is paying off. During his 15 years in office he has lead an aggressive campaign to turn Málaga into a place brimming with culture. [...]

His campaign reached new heights this week with the opening of the first foreign outposts of two high-profile museums: the Centre Pompidou Málaga and the Málaga branch of the St Petersburg State Russian Museum. — theguardian.com

There are roughly 11,000 Starbucks locations in the United States, and about 14,000 McDonald's restaurants. But combined, the two chains don't come close to the number of museums in the U.S., which stands at a whopping 35,000.

So says the latest data release from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, an independent government agency that tallies the number and type of museums in this country. [...] the 35,000 active museums represent a doubling from the number estimated in the 1990s. — washingtonpost.com

The State Hermitage Museum signed a protocol of intent on Wednesday, 11 March, with the St Petersburg-based LSR development group to open a satellite branch of the museum in Moscow, on the grounds of the landmark former Soviet ZIL automobile plant. [...]

Also present was the Canadian architect Hani Rashid who will design the satellite with his New York-based firm Asymptote Architecture. Russian media report that construction is due to be completed by 2018. — theartnewspaper.com

Dubai continues to treat city planning like a simulation game with the cheats turned on, unveiling its latest architectural wonder: the Museum of the Future. The building is set to open in 2017, and while we're not quite sure how to describe its shape (a lopsided torus? An aerodynamic donut?) it serves an interesting dual purpose as both museum and research lab. — theverge.com

Built largely in secret and under decidedly unorthodox circumstances, the Whitney [Plantation] had been turned into a museum dedicated to telling the story of slavery — the first of its kind in the United States.

Located on land where slaves worked for more than a century, in a state where the sight of the Confederate flag is not uncommon, the results are both educational and visceral. — nytimes.com

Islamic State militants ransacked Mosul’s central museum, destroying priceless artefacts that are thousands of years old, in the group’s latest rampage which threatens to upend millennia of coexistence in the Middle East.

The destruction of statues and artefacts that date from the Assyrian and Akkadian empires, revealed in a video published by Isis on Thursday, drew ire from the international community and condemnation by activists and minorities that have been attacked by the group. — theguardian.com