Residents and visitors are being given the chance to discuss plans for a proposed new museum in Southend-on-Sea, Essex, as part of a council-organised consultation. Manchester-based AEW Architects has been selected to design the new attraction and will be on hand at a seafront location opposite the pier for three days a week until 30 September. The £35m development is set to be built at the resort's Cliff Gardens and

The British Postal Museum and Archives (BPMA) has appointed Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios (FCBS) to lead the development of its new £19m home in Swindon. Work will now get underway on the restoration and repair of a Grade II*-listed property at the former Great Western Railway Chain Testing Works that will house the new attraction. Among the items included in the BPMA's collection to be made available to the public

A new visitor attraction has opened to the public at the historic Louisiana State Capitol in the US. Designed by BRC Imagination Arts, the US$6.6m (€5.1m, £4,4m) addition includes exhibition galleries, restored public spaces, and a 12-minute interactive theatre experience featuring a Pepper's ghost presentation. There is also a The Legacy of Huey Long exhibition, a series of galleries that offer guests an insight into the controversial political legacy of

Wilton House near Salisbury in Wiltshire has won the Historic Houses Association's (HHA) Restoration Award for 2010. The award, in conjunction with art auction house Sotheby's and now in its third year, is for Wilton's work on its private dining room. The project is the centrepiece of a range of restoration schemes at the house, which has also seen its library, north ante library, smoking rooms, cloisters, gothic hall, inner

The museum commemorating the victims of the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York is set to open to the public in 2012. The US$45m (£29m, €35m) Memorial Museum, designed by Davis Brody Bond architects, will cover 120,000sq ft (11,100sq m) and will be located beneath the memorial plaza. Visitors to the museum will enter through a glass-cased visitors' orientation and education centre located on the

Grade I-listed Apethorpe Hall in Northamptonshire has been opened to visitors following a major £4m redevelopment of the property. Funded by English Heritage, the work on the property included the restoration of the interior areas - including the plasterwork, oak panelling and ornate fireplaces - by traditional craftspeople. A large section of the timber-framed roof has been repaired and re-roofed using thousands of local stone slates. In total around 150,000

Monmouth's Savoy Theatre and the Animal Wall - part of the Cardiff Castle complex - are among 24 historic buildings to receive a share of nearly £1m from the Welsh Assembly Government. The Savoy Theatre - one of the oldest venues of its kind in Wales - is set to benefit from repair restoration work to its front elevation after securing more than £39,000 as part of the funding package.

The Israel Museum in Jerusalem has reopened following a 3-year, US$100m (£64.5m, €77m) redevelopment programme involving new galleries, orientation facilities and public spaces. Led by James Carpenter Design Associates of New York and Efrat-Kowalsky Architects of Tel Aviv, the project also included the renovation and reconfiguration of the museum's three collection wings and the reinstallation of its encyclopedic collections. The museum's architectural footprint has increased considerably since its opening in

Steven Holl Architects has received international architecture awards for the Herning Museum of Contemporary Art in Herning, Denmark, and the Knut Hamsun Center in Hamarøy, Norway. The awards, administered annually by the Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design and the European Center for Architecture, Art, Design and Urban Studies, recognise "new and cutting-edge design" and aim to promote "excellence in architecture and urbanism from a global point-of-view." The Herning

The Jewish Museum in Berlin, Germany - Jüdisches Museum Berlin - is to get an extension designed by original architect Daniel Libeskind, after the sale of land for the project was approved by current owners Berliner Grossmarkt GmbH. The museum is to build an academy housing a library, archives, educational spaces and offices on the site of the former flower market adjacent to its Kreuzberg premises in central Berlin. Construction

Oslo, Norway-based architects Snøhetta have been appointed to design a new US$250m (£164m) expansion to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA). The project, first announced in April last year, will incorporate additional gallery space and interior improvements in the museum's Third Street building, together with an extension on Howard Street - to the south - that will connect to the back of the existing museum along the southern

The British Postal Museum and Archive (BPMA) has been handed a boost from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) towards a scheme to establish a new £19m home in Swindon. BPMA has moved closer to securing a grant worth more than £2.6m to help in its bid to provide public access to the former National Postage Museum's collection, which has been in storage since 1998. The HLF has awarded development funding

Detailed plans have been revealed for the George W. Presidential Center, to be built in Dallas, Texas, US. Designed by Robert A.M. Stern Architects, The attraction will include a real-size replica of the famous Oval Office, a museum and a presidential library. The centre will also be the home of a public policy research institute. The museum will tell the story of the Bush presidency and thematic design will feature

A former nuclear bomb shelter near the town of Konjic, Bosnia, is to be host to the Biennale of Contemporary Art, D-O ARK Underground. The underground bunker, built between 1953-1979 for the then leader of Yugoslavia, Josip Tito, was intended to house around 350 people who could live there for up to six months without returning to the surface. With its entrance hidden by several houses, the well preserved shelter

Hafod Eryri, a new visitor centre on the summit of Snowdon, North Wales, is among more than 22 projects shortlisted for this year's Prime Minister's Better Public Building Award. In addition to the Ray Hole Architects-designed attraction, the refurbished Ashmolean Museum in Oxford and Hull Truck Theatre's new Humberside home have been shortlisted for the prize. Nottingham Contemporary - a new 3,400sq m (36,600sq ft) arts complex, London's Victoria and

Suzanne Mubarak, wife of the president of Egypt, has inaugurated the first two phases of the new US$550m (£372m, €444m) Grand Museum of Egypt. The new 100,000sq m (1.1m sq ft) museum, which occupies a 120-acre (48.5 hectares) site about 2km (1.2 miles) from the Pyramids of Giza, now has a power plant, a fire station and a conservation centre. One of the milestones in the museum's construction has been

Six companies have been shortlisted as part of an international design competition to draw up plans for a landmark new building to house the proposed V&A at Dundee. Located at Craig Harbour as part of city's redeveloped waterfront area, the attraction will host travelling and permanent exhibitions, as well as providing a resource for design and creativity. Among the shortlisted design teams is Vienna, Austria-based Delugan Meissl Associated Architects, along

Plans for the major £78m restoration and refurbishment of Oxford's New Bodleian Library have been given the green light by the local authority. Oxford City Council (OCC) has approved planning permission and listed building consent for the scheme, which has been put forward by Oxford University's Bodleian Library. Designs drawn up by London-based Wilkinson Eyre Architects aim to create new storage space for the libraries' collection, to support advanced research

Event Communications has been appointed to design a new visitor attraction at Roman Maryport, Cumbria - part of the Hadrian's Wall World Heritage Site. Hadrian's Wall Heritage (HWH) - a non-profit organisation - bought 150 acres (60.7 hectares) of land at Camp Farm in December 2008 for the museum development, which is set to cost £11.5m. Roman Maryport, which is believed to be one of the most important Roman frontiers

£4m plans for Todmorden Town Hall in Calderdale, West Yorkshire, have been approved by the borough council's project board. The proposals, drawn up by London-based architects Camillin Denny, include extensive refurbishment of the exterior and interior of the building and turning the basement into a café and heritage exhibition space. They also include shops and meeting rooms, new toilets, a new bar and lifts below an extension to the ballroom

Leicester-based Haley Sharpe Design (HSD) has been awarded the interpretative planning and exhibit design for a major redevelopment of Hong Kong's Maritime Museum. The group will work as part of a team led by Hong Kong-based P&T Architects on the development, which will cost HK$110m (£9.8m, US$14.1m, €11.4m) and is due for completion in October 2012. Currently at the schematic design stage, the redevelopment will see the attraction move from

The Museum of London is nearing completion of its £20m refurbishment which will see the opening of five new galleries. Architects Wilkinson Eyre and the museum's in-house design team have transformed its display spaces. The redesigned museum will feature the City Gallery, a new space housing the Lord Mayor's Coach; The Weston Theatre, a multipurpose space for films and performances which can also be used for corporate events; and the

The scaffolding has finally come down on a major £3m conservation project at Westminster Abbey's Chapter House. The English Heritage-led scheme has seen a team of 20 master carvers and stonemasons cleaning and repairing the weather-worn gargoyles, stone floral friezes, flying buttresses and stained glass windows at what is one of the city's oldest buildings and a meeting place for the early House of Commons. In keeping with both medieval

The Royal Air Force (RAF) Museum has unveiled plans to develop a new landmark exhibition building dedicated to the Battle of Britain at Hendon, North London. Under the proposals drawn up by Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios, the proposed Battle of Britain Beacon will feature a tapered body and will be 116m (350ft) high - taller than London's Big Ben. The beacon scheme - revealed ahead of the 70th anniversary of

Centre Pompidou-Metz, the offshoot of Paris’s famous Pompidou Centre, has opened in France. The 70.8m euro (£60.8m,US$89m) new centre, located in the north eastern city of Metz, is the first provincial branch of the famous art gallery. Owned by Communauté d’Agglomération de Metz Métropole, the building was designed by Japan-based Shigeru Ban Architects (SBA) in partnership with French architect Jean de Gastines. The centre will boast paintings, sculptures, installations, graphic

The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County is to add a 3.5 acre, USS$30m park - the North Campus - to its site on Exposition Boulevard in Los Angeles, US. Scheduled to open in July 2011, North Campus - a collaboration between the museum itself; Jorge de la Cal, AIA, of CO Architects, Don Webb of the Cordell Corporation; and Mia Lehrer + Associates - will increase the visitor

Dorset-based contractor Greendale Construction has started work on a £5.5m scheme to restore a historic Grade II-listed castle near Swanage. Durlston Castle, situated at the heart of Durlston Country Park and National Nature Reserve, is set to be returned to full public use as a new visitor centre. The castle, which is due to reopen in summer 2011, will provide a new eastern gateway to the Jurassic Coast World Heritage