Cultural giving among America’s top philanthropists fell slightly in 2014, according to an annual ranking of the 50 largest charitable donors released last week by the Chronicle of Philanthropy. This news might come as a surprise to US museum directors, who have been swiftly—and quietly—raising eight-, nine-, and ten-figure donations from eager patrons. Their ambitious capital campaigns make the austerity measures of the recent recession feel like a distant memory. — theartnewspaper.com

Architect Elizabeth Diller [...] stood on the Grand Avenue sidewalk Friday morning in front of the Broad museum, which she designed with her New York firm, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, and is set to open Sept. 20.

Was she giving an architectural preview? Doing damage control? Trying to regain some influence over the narrative of the museum’s construction, which has been beset by delays, fabrication problems and legal wrangling?

The answer seemed to be some combination of the three. — latimes.com

Towns and cities across France will soon be able to boost their culture offerings by hosting pop-up branches of the Centre Pompidou. The Paris museum is expanding its empire, and aims to establish domestic temporary outposts. “We will soon launch an open call for candidates [to select a French city],” says a spokesman for the Centre Pompidou. These pop-ups will remain open for four years. — theartnewspaper.com

The popularity of video games shows no sign of waning, and museums have ramped up their interest in the medium. [...]

“Sorry MoMA, video games are not art” was the headline on Jonathan Jones’s blog [...] after New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) announced the acquisition of 14 video games, including 1980s classics “Tetris” and “Pac-Man”. “All hell broke loose in an interesting way,” said Paola Antonelli, a senior curator in the museum’s department of architecture and design [...]. — theartnewspaper.com

Today, the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution authorized museum officials to explore opening its first-ever international exhibition gallery. [...] go-ahead to "develop terms for an agreement" with the London Legacy Development Corp. to create a new exhibition space in London at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, home to the 2012 Games and a new cultural center. In the Smithsonian’s 168-year existence, this site would be the first international venue to house a long-term exhibition. — smithsonianmag.com

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

The facade of Bunker Hill's The Broad museum was officially unveiled this morning as workers removed the last of the exterior scaffolding, and things are not looking quite as originally envisioned. The design, by starchitects Diller Scofidio + Renfro, was originally advertised as an "innovative veil" that will activate "two-way views that connect the museum and the street"; today it's been updated to be, well, a bit less innovative. — la.curbed.com

This fall, the French cultural season opened with the private Vuitton Foundation museum in Paris, a rarefied environment for a select collection of contemporary art, by Frank Gehry. At the other end of the cultural spectrum, France’s second largest metropolitan area, Lyon — arguably Paris’s historic rival, the Chicago to New York — just inaugurated the equally large and prepossessing Confluence Museum (the Musée des Confluences). — nytimes.com

a $25.4 million state grant that, matched with upwards of $30 million in private funds, will allow the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA) to renovate another 140,000 square feet into gallery space on its 13-acre campus.

While this expansion will make it the largest contemporary art museum in the U.S., MASS MoCA has also been pioneering new economic models, civic engagement strategies and urban design interventions that are relevant for museums in much larger cities. — nextcity.org

Out of a super-star list of competitors, a team led by Steven Holl Architects won the competition to design the North Wing -- or the Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Museum -- of the Mumbai City Museum in India. The museum is one of India's leading cultural institutions and is undergoing a renewal process to establish itself as a cultural destination. The new 275 crore (approx $44.3 million) building will include new galleries and facilities. — bustler.net

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