A new museum celebrating country music, built in conjunction with the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, has opened on the border between Tennessee and Virginia in the south of the US. Designed by Peyton Boyd Architects, the US$11m (€8.2m, £6.5m) Birthplace of Country Music Museum, which opens today (8 August) in Bristol, VA, has been in the pipeline for several years. The 24,000sq ft (2,229sq m) museum will feature several different

Hip boutique hotel chain Ace Hotels has launched its latest property in Los Angeles’ historic United Artists building. Originally designed by architect Howard Crane for the United Artists film studio, the 18-storey building opened in 1927 and was used as a movie theatre until 1974. Atelier Ace worked with Commune Design to restore the United Artists building and theatre. The exterior façade was stripped, cleaned and restored, ‘as it would

The new home for the Aspen Art Museum (AAM) is now complete, and ready to open to the public on Saturday 9 August. Designed by Pritzker Prize winning architect Shigeru Ban, the 33,000sq ft (10,058sq m) museum and gallery is the new home for the Aspen Art Museum, which had outgrown its old place of residence. As Ban’s first permanent museum in America, the backdrop of the building is the

The French government has announced that it will pledge €200m ($267m, £160m) for urgent repairs and restoration to the iconic La Défense Grande Arche, located in Paris’s financial district. Inaugurated on Bastille Day in 1989, the 20th century answer to the Arc de Triomphe was mastermind by Danish architect Johann Otto von Spreckelsen and completed by French architect Paul Andreu. Standing at 110m (360.8 ft) high, 110m wide and 110m

From a shortlist of six architectural practices, Goldsmiths College, London, has announced that Assemble - a London based architecture collective - will be designing their new £1.8m ($3.1m, €2.2m) gallery in South East London. Housed in Grade II listed swimming baths, Assemble’s design for the gallery will incorporate the original black steel water tanks as part of the new exhibition space, while creating new gallery spaces tacked onto the outside

To commemorate the centenary of the First World War, a monumental pillar of light was shot into the air last night, eerily hung amongst London’s famous skyline. Together with the nation's Lights Out initiative, which saw households and businesses across the UK extinguishing all but one of their lights at 10pm last night (4th August), acclaimed artist Ryoji Ikeda’s latest installation lit up a corner of Westminster and spread 15km

George Lucas’ legacy project – the US$300m (€220m, £179m) Lucas Museum of Narrative Art (LMNA) – has revealed that Beijing-based MAD Architects has been selected as principal designer for the project, while Chicago-based Studio Gang will work on the landscape. In addition, VOA Associates, based in Chicago, will serve as the executive architect and lead the implementation of MAD’s design. Pending approval by the Chicago Plan Commission, Lucas' 95,000sq ft

Aberdeen City Council is looking for construction firms to carry out a £30m (US$50.9m, €37.8m) revamp of the Scottish city’s art gallery. The local authority’s approved plans include the construction of a new rooftop gallery and the extension of the gallery’s iconic war memorial. “It's great to see the next step towards expanding the Art Gallery has been taken,” said council chair Dustin Macdonald in a statement. The council has

Brighton, UK's, Hippodrome looks set to enjoy a new lease of life after Brighton & Hove City Council approved plans to transform the 117-year-old structure into a cinema and restaurant complex. Alaska Development Consultants is behind the £18m plans and – having been advised by Indigo Planning – will bring the Grade-II listed, ‘at risk’ building back into use, based on designs from Russ Drage Architects. The proposals include an

London’s five-star Andaz Liverpool Street Hotel by Hyatt is the latest to embrace the growing trend of teaming hospitality offerings with the world of art, following the launch of its Room With A View project. The trend to combine hotels and art has also seen London offering The Beaumont Hotel – due to open later this year – work with award-winning artist Sir Anthony Gormley to create an iconic room

De Matos Ryan – a London based architectural firm – has been granted planning permission to go ahead with a £4.1m revamp of The York Theatre Royal, UK, while nearby Newcastle's Theatre Royal is also getting a makeover, albeit behind the scenes. After a large fundraising effort, the York project is now set to move forward with an onsite start date of March 2015 and a provisional completion date of

Rome’s long-awaited €250m, (US$340m, £198m) Cinecittà World theme park – designed by multiple-Oscar-winning production designer designer Dante Ferretti – will finally open its doors to the public on 24 July after a decade of delays. Conceived as Italy’s take on Universal Studios, Cinecittà World comprises 20 attractions, including roller coasters, dark rides and a flight simulator. Incorporating elements of science fiction, Bollywood, spaghetti westerns and many other themes from more

Roger Stirk Harbour + Partners’ have completed their £135m (US$231m, €170m) extension to the British Museum, London. As one of the most popular visitor attractions in the world, the British Museum is a defining institution and its new World Conservation and Exhibition Centre has been a long time coming. Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners (RSHP) won the contract for the extension in 2009 from a shortlist of top architectural practices,

Archiview, a Dutch architectural practice, has created a planetarium-come-cinema in Groningen, the Netherlands, with plans to open a further 20 across Europe in the near future. Called “Infoversum” and now open to the public, the structure is effectively a 3D theatre aimed at promoting science and knowledge. Films are projected on to the ceiling of the planetarium showing educational footage and visitors can experience a multi-dimensional view of the universe

The Mall of the World – a giant indoor ‘city’ under construction in Dubai – will have its own version of Oxford Street and Broadway, as well as galleons, waterfalls, a theme park, wellness district and a host of other leisure activities and attractions. The ‘city’, which has a giant retractable dome, is Dubai’s vision for a climate-controlled leisure district, including luxury hotels with more than 20,000 bedrooms, shops, entertainment

Washington's National Building Museum in the US has revealed its latest exhibition – a complex wooden maze designed by Danish architecture firm Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) which fills the large West Court of the museum’s Great Hall Taking inspiration from ancient labyrinths to european 17th-18th century hedge mazes, BIG has created a modern day riddle with the all important “great reveal” in the centre. At approximately 18ft (5.5m) high and

Yorkshire Sculpture Park (YSP), Wakefield, UK, has taken home a £100,000 prize from The Art Fund after being announced the UK Museum of the Year by Art Fund – the national fundraising charity for art. YSP beat several other top museums to the prize, with the shortlist including; Ditchling Museum of Art and Craft in East Sussex, Hayward Gallery in London, The Mary Rose Museum in Portsmouth, Sainsbury Centre for

Pritzker Prize winning architect Peter Zumthor and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) have unveiled new plans for the US museum’s proposed US$650m (€477m, £380m) transformation. Following controversy over the original designs, Zumthor has altered his original plans to avoid the La Brea Tar Pits – an important site for palaeontology research and a major tourist hotspot in the LA area. Before changes to the plans, the proposed

London’s AT Design Office has released designs for a floating city in the China Sea, and the plans look set to become reality as China's government looks to maximise its tourist footprint. Space is a premium on any continent, especially so in China and the proposed floating city would be built to appeal to tourists and residents alike, offering an array of attractions and plenty of green space. Commissioned by

A planned super city in South Korea that will cost an estimated US$275bn (€202bn, £160bn) will include a host of leisure features including a theme park, casinos, luxury hotels, a 50,000 seat concert hall and a medical-themed ‘healing town’. Dubbed ‘City8’, the giant metropolis will create an estimated 930,000 new jobs and aims to attract 134 million tourists annually. Other features for the proposed city – to be built on

The new Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (Zeitz MOCAA) in South Africa's Cape Town will be designed by Thomas Heatherwick – marking the architect's biggest museum project to date. Zeitz MOCAA is to be a new non-profit cultural space alongside the V&A Waterfront, one of the most visited attractions in South Africa. As part of a masterplan - Heatherwick will transform an historic grain silo into 9,500sq m (102,000sq

Frank Gehry and the Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMoA) have unveiled a new masterplan for the 90-year-old museum site in America. Known for his famous cultural projects such as the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, Gehry’s latest designs for PMoA have been revealed in a new exhibition – Making a Classic Modern: Frank Gehry’s Master Plan for the Philadelphia Museum of Art – which is now open to the public.

New York City based architectural firm The Living has completed its winning design for the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) Young Architects Program, Hi-Fi – a tubular tower made of mushroom and corn bricks. Constructed to provide shelter and seating for PS1’s Warm Up concert series at the MoMA, the structure is almost 100 per cent biodegradable and is intended to be composted down after its use. The circular tower

Redevelopment plans for London’s Crystal Palace have hit a wall as negotiations with the site's investors – Chinese ZhongRong Group and Bromley Council – have taken significantly longer than expected. Speaking to the Architects’ Journal, Green Party spokesman in Crystal Palace Tom Chance said: ‘We understand that the negotiations are stuck in a catch 22 situation – that the council wants more detail on the plans before they sign off

Wuhan, the capital city of central China, could be the home of the world’s tallest pair of buildings by 2018, as part of an ambitious mixed-use scheme. Chetwoods Architects, a UK based firm, have submitted proposals for the world’s tallest towers and are awaiting final approval from Wuhan’s mayor. The new Phoenix Towers, standing at 3,280ft (1 km) tall, would take up seven hectares of a yet-to-be developed 47 hectare

Dubai city officials and architect Fernando Donis are at loggerheads following the unveiling of plans for a unique new attraction in Dubai. Donis, a Mexican architect, won the Dubai Municipality competition to design a new public monument in 2009 and now, five years later, new images have been released of the redesigned structure. The “Dubai Frame” will be 150m (492ft) tall and 100m (328ft) wide, with a walkway between the

The Southbank Centre, London, is to receive funding from Arts Council England to carry out part of the much need conservation project across the site. The £16.7m grant will fund the repair and maintenance of the Queen Elizabeth Hall, Purcell Room and the Hayward Gallery. Starting in 2015, the project will begin to address an accumulated backlog of £24m worth of repairs. Arts Council England will meet 70 per cent