The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has chosen David Chipperfield Architects to design and oversee the gutting and rebuilding of its new south-west wing which houses modern and contemporary art. It’s thought completion will be timed to coincide with the museums’s 150th anniversary in 2020. New York’s museums are competing with ever more ambitious plans and in so doing, forging New York City into one of the most

For the first time ever, the World Architecture Festival (WAF) is coming to London in June. WAF, a high-profile architecture festival, will put on an exhibition during the London Festival of Architecture, which runs from 1-30 June 2015. An exclusive exhibition, hosted by WAF, will showcase its 2015 finalists on 24-27 June, in London, prior to the announcement of the winners of the sought after World Architecture Awards. The exhibited

Bjarke Ingels, in conjunction with Rebuild by Design, has laid out plans for ‘The Dryline’ – a leisure-oriented storm barrier for New York City. Following the devastation caused by Hurricane Sandy in 2012, where more than US$19bn (€17.9bn, £12.6bn) of damage was inflicted on New York, Rebuild by Design – a federally-funded initiative, which is part of the Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Task Force and the US Department of Housing and

SO-IL and Freaks Freearchitects have jointly won an architectural competition to redesign a glass museum and gallery on the site of an 18th century factory in Meisenthal, France. New York-based SO-IL is collaborating with Paris-based Freaks to give the Site Verrier Meisenthal – first opened in 1704 – a complete makeover. Renovations of the former glass factory will include a new cultural centre, glass art centre and glass gallery. According

An Argentinian design team, headed up by Carlos Nahuel Recabarren, has won a UNESCO design competition to create a Cultural Centre in Bamiyan, Afghanistan. From more than 1,000 design proposals that were submitted in the single stage competition – which opened in November 2014 – Carlos Nahuel Recabarren, Manuel Alberto Martinez Catalan and Franco Morero’s project, entitled ‘Descriptive Memory: The Eternal Presence of Absence’ was picked as the winner. Paolo

Design firm Gensler has been awarded a London Planning Award for its London Underline concept – a network of cycle and pedestrian paths running beneath the city. Gensler first came up with the idea for the London Underline in 2014. With London’s population higher than ever, the firm looked for ways to expand public space and offer alternative transport routes. The answer, they found, was underground in disused tube tunnels.

Work has started on the M+ Museum West Kowloon Cultural District (WKCD), Hong Kong, following a ground breaking ceremony. Designed by Herzog and de Meuron in partnership with TFP Farrells and Ove Arup & Partners Hong Kong, the museum's ground breaking was marked by the burial of a commemorative time capsule containing contemporary and local items, ready to be rediscovered in a century. The M+ Museum, with a floor space

The Broad, a new contemporary art museum in Los Angeles, US, is set to open to the public on 20 September 2015. The US$140m (€123m, £91.6m) museum is being funded by philanthropists Eli and Edythe Broad, founders of the The Broad Art Foundation whose assets total US$2.6bn (€2.2bn, £1.7bn). Designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro (DS+R) in collaboration with Gensler, the museum has been dubbed “the veil and vault”, referring

FIGMENT, an arts festival that takes over Governors Island in New York City every summer has announced two winners for its 2015 City of Dreams pavilion competition. First started in 2007, FIGMENT acts as a forum for the creation and display of participatory and interactive art. Since then, it has grown in size and public support and is now a major art event in cities across the USA over the

Manchester, UK’s “gallery in the park” will reopen its doors on 14 February following a £15m (US$23m, €20m) makeover by architectural firm MUMA. The work doubles the public space and extends the exhibition floor, while incorporating educational areas and a storage centre. The contemporary art gallery, in the grounds of the University of Manchester, has had two wings added to the rear of the 19th-century building. The extension's brickwork takes

Work has started on a £25m (US$37m, €33m) community and leisure centre in Harrow, North London. Planning was granted back in 2010 for the project, which seeks to create a 5,000sq m (53,820sq ft) centre, acting as a ‘cultural embassy’ for Harrow’s community. London and Barcelona-based Mangera Yvars Architects is the firm behind the project. The practice originally set out to provide a space where people of any faith could

Following an announcement in November 2014 outlining five finalists shortlisted to design the £90m (US$135m, €119m) Bristol Arena, images of the proposals have now been revealed. In the running to design the 12,000 capacity indoor entertainment venue are the following five teams: - Grimshaw (with MANICA Architecture, Thornton Tomasetti, M-E Engineers and Neil Woodger Acoustics) - IDOM (in collaboration with Foreman Roberts and Nagata Acoustics) - Populous (with Feilden Clegg

Ateliers Jean Nouvel’s arts scheme for Qingdao, China – the 70,000sq m (753,000sq ft) Artists’ Garden – has broken ground. The development will include a new museum hosting exhibitions from the National Art Museum of China, Beijing, which was also designed by the practice. An existing harbour will be doubled in size and converted into a marina at one end of the site, while other elements will include art studios,

The Le Meridien Columbus hotel has opened in the Joseph, a US$68m (€49m, £40m) mixed-use development in the Short North neighbourhood of Columbus, Ohio, US. Owned and developed by the Columbus-based Pizzuti Companies, the 10-storey high-rise broke ground in August 2013. Le Meridien Columbus, managed by Wischermann Partners, features 135 bedrooms, an in-house restaurant and spa suites. Designed by Miami-based architectural firm Arquitectonica, Le Meridien Columbus houses art from chair

The field of architects competing to design the revamp of the Sydney Modern art gallery in New South Wales, Australia, has been narrowed down to five architects for stage two of the competition. The final five shortlisted architects are Tokyo-based Kazuyo Sejima + Ryue Nishizawa / SANAA; Kengo Kuma & Associates - also from Tokyo; Perth’s Kerry Hill Architects; Mumbai-based Rahul Mehrotra Architects; and Melbourne’s Sean Godsell Architects. “Our vision

Plans to convert a 1926 art deco cinema in London into a luxury residential development have been rejected by Kensington & Chelsea Council, following a firm word from London's favourite fictional detective. Squire and Partners’ plans for the site has been in the works since 2007, when planning permission was originally granted. However, the 'Save Kensington Odeon' campaign brought the development to a standstill following its most recent plea, which

Bjarke Ingels, head of architecture practice BIG, has been explaining his masterplan for Europa City in a newly-released video. The scheme will be one of the largest leisure developments in Europe over the next five years. Developer, Alliages, will begin construction in 2017 and the city will open in 2020. The development is 16km (10m) from Paris. Ingels says the scheme will combine “authentic, lively, dense urban environments and streetscapes

As part of the first ever Chicago Architecture Biennial, starting in October 2015, a lakefront architecture competition has been announced. This competition aims to bring attention to Lake Michigan’s bustling shoreline and offers participants a chance to create “an iconic work of architecture that will attract visitors and enliven the lakefront all year round.” As a celebrated public space in Chicago, the lakefront is currently features over twenty miles of

The Dalian Wanda group has launched its latest theme park project – a US$1bn (€839m, £659m) movie park in the Chinese city of Wuhan. Designed by Stufish Entertainment Architects and located at either end of Wuhan’s cultural district – an US$8bn (€6.7bn, £5.3bn) development project in the city – the indoor movie theme park comprises six attractions which combine 3D effects, live actors, props, stunts and special effects. The park

Subsequent to winning a competition to revamp Oldham Coliseum in 2013, Dutch practice Mecanoo has submitted plans to transform the building into a new heritage centre and theatre. Mecanoo, which has offices in nearby Manchester as well as overseas, had a busy year in 2014. Back in February, Francine Houben, Mecanoo’s creative director and founding partner was awarded Woman Architect of the Year 2014. Following this, one of the practices’

Following a two-year fundraising campaign, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) is closing in on its financial target to build a 235,000sq ft (21,800sq m) new wing. The US$610m (€513m, £401m) figure would fund the new wing – which would house works by the likes of Andy Warhol, Mark Rothko and David Hockney – and secure the future of the museum for many years to come. The expanded

By 2020, a new super museum will be constructed in central Copenhagen, dubbed the Natural History Museum of Denmark. Blending together three of the city's existing institutions, the Natural History Museum, the Geological Museum and the Botanical Museum, the new facility is expected to be one of the largest of its kind in the world. Following a recent DKR550m (€73.933m, US$91m, £58.1m) grant from several private foundations, the University of

A large hourglass has been installed in Turin, Italy’s, Piazza San Carlo, counting down progress as the €50m (US$62.3m, £39.7m) redevelopment of the city’s Egyptian Museum reaches its final stages. Scheduled to fully reopen on 1 April 2015, Museo Egizio or the Egyptian Museum of Turin is one of the world’s oldest Egyptian museums. Founded in 1824, it ranks second only to its counterpart in Cairo. The museum is at

An international team, led by New York-based Steven Holl Architects, has been chosen to design the Mumbai City Museum North Wing. Steven Holl Architects has been chosen to almost double the size of the Mumbai City Museum, otherwise known as the Bhau Daji Lad Museum, from a shortlist of eight architectural heavy weights. Organised by Malcolm Reading Consultants, the competition drew more than 100 entrants. Malcolm Reading commented: “In Steven

Architecture firm Soare & Yokina Arhitecti Asociati (SYAA) has won a competition to design the new nature-themed science museum complex in Constanta, Romania. Bucharest-based SYAA will design the 80,000sq m (860,000sq ft) Muzeul Stiintei si al Naturii Constanta, which will be the largest such complex in the Black Sea region and is being funded by the Territorial Council of Constanta. The development follows a ‘green’ theme The main structure features

The Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) has green-lighted more than £21m in funding for a variety of heritage projects across the UK, including the renovation of a World War One social club, construction of Scotland’s first building conservation centre and the creation of an aerospace centre. Among the projects that have received funding, some of the most notable include: Bristol Aerospace Centre Bristol Aerospace Centre gained the largest slice of the

Work has started on South Korea’s first integrated resort – Paradise City in Incheon – which is scheduled open next to Incheon International Airport in the first half of 2017. A number of the industry’s leading architecture and design practices have been working on the US$1.7bn (€1.4bn, £1.1bn) casino, hotel, spa and theme park project, including WATG, GA Design International, Hirsch Bedner Associates, Hawkins Brown, Lifescapes International and Gansam Architects.