The Science Museum in London, UK, is to undergo a £100m modernisation. Designed by Wilkinson Eyre Architects, the designs for the revamp are intended to match with wider plans for the South Kensington area, and will boast a new glass feature called the Beacon on the Exhibition Road façade is intended to "present an exciting new image of the Science Museum as a dynamic and engaging place to visit". The

Work on the first phase of the £5.5m redevelopment of Durlston Country Park in Dorset is to get underway this summer with the restoration of the Great Globe and other stone inscriptions. Stone conservation specialists Sue and Lawrence Kelland have been appointed to repair and repaint the 40-ton globe, which was first erected during the late 19th century by the owner of the Durlston Estate, George Burt. The next phase

Boris Johnson's latest initiative to improve the lives of Londoners aims to boost the number of volunteers in the capital. Johnson said: "Volunteering is good for individuals and great for London in tough economic times. By giving your time, whether a one-off few hours or a regular commitment, we can both help to make the capital a more civilised, pleasant place and reap the rewards of putting something back into

The Jewish Museum London, in Camden Town, is set to reopen to the public in November 2009, after having undergone a £9m redevelopment of its facilities. The revamp, funded partly by a £4.3m grant from the Heritage lottery Fund, has resulted in the museum tripling in space in order to accommodate its collections, which are currently housed at two separate sites in Camden Town and Finchley. Five new galleries have

The US$106m (£64m, 74.4m euro) expansion of the 170,000sq ft (15,793sq m) Anchorage Museum at the Rasmuson Center in Alaska has opened its doors to the public. The revamp, designed by London-based David Chipperfield Architects, incorporated a new glass-fronted façade and entrance facing downtown Anchorage. Among the features of the new building are a café, shop and two extra floors (80,000sq ft, 7,432sq m) of exhibition space. A venue at

Housesteads Roman Fort, which is part of Hadrian's Wall World Heritage Site near Bardon Mill, Northumberland, is set to be transformed over the next five years in a bid to improve the visitor experience. The National Trust and English Heritage will work with Hadrian's Wall Heritage and Gareth Hoskins Architects - designers of the award-winning Culloden Battlefield visitor centre in Scotland - to create enhanced displays showcasing some of the

The US$300m (£193.5m, 220m euro) Modern Wing at the Art Institute of Chicago, US, has opened to public this week. The 24,500sq m (264,000sq ft) extension, designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Renzo Piano has increased the museum's floor space to more than a million square feet, making it the second largest art museum in the US. The three-storey extension, which is covered by a sun-shade system allowing natural light to

Lakeland Motor Museum at Holker Hall in Cumbria will be relocated to a new purpose-built premise at Backbarrow near Newby Bridge. Former Blue Mill carton packaging sheds have been redeveloped to provide a larger display space for the museum's 30,000 exhibits, which tell the story of more than 100 years of motoring history. A new exhibit on all aspects of road transport history will now be presented, while existing displays,

A new £25m visitor centre is set to be built at Stonehenge in Wiltshire after a scheme to revitalise the World Heritage Site was provisionally given the green light by the government. Work will now commence on drawing up a planning application for the new centre, which is to be located at Airman's Corner following recommendations by the Stonehenge Project Board - chaired by culture minister Barbara Follett and transport

New plans for the radical mixed-use redevelopment of London's Grade II-listed Commonwealth Institute building in Holland Park have angered heritage groups. The designs have been submitted to the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea Council (RBK&C) by the Office of Metropolitan Architecture (OMA), with the intention of converting the building into a possible new home for the Design Museum. The redevelopment, led by developers Chelsfield Partners, includes the removal of

The architect has been picked to design a new branch of Mexico's Tamayo Contemporary Art Museum in Mexico City on behalf of client Patronato Tamayo. Mexican architects Roijkin Arquitectos and Danish practice BIG have been selected from a design competition to create the new 3,500sq m Tamayo Museum, which will house art exhibition spaces, storage and restoration facilities. The cross-shaped building, designed to look like 'an open box', is earmarked

The National Children's Museum (NCM) - formerly the Capital Children's Museum in Washington - is set to reopen at its new home in Maryland, US, in 2013. Part of the National Harbor development in Prince George's County, the 150,000sq ft (14,000sq m) building will represent six core content areas: the environment, health and well being, play, civic engagement, the arts and world cultures. Designed by Connecticut architect Cesar Pelli, it

The Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Centre has opened in Skokie, IL, US. Around 12,000 people attended the US$45m (£30m, 34m euro), 65,000sq ft (6,040sq m) museum, which features 2,000 survivor testimonies. The museum – designed by architect Stanley Tigerman – houses artefacts such as Simon Wiesenthal’s eyeglasses, an original volume of the Nuremberg Trial transcripts, Kindertransport lists and artwork made in the concentration camps. Its Room of Remembrance honours

A new £2.2m visitor centre has opened at the Stanwick Lakes countryside attraction and nature reserve near Higham Ferrers, Northamptonshire, as part of a two-phase project at the site. The facility, which marks the completion of the first phase of the construction scheme, includes a central atrium containing an interpretation space and interactive exhibits, a multi-purpose function suite and an indoor play area for young children. A café with terrace

Attempts to save the former home of author Elizabeth Gaskell have received a boost after English Heritage (EH) announced that it would contribute more than £260,000 as part of a £2.5m revamp of the property. The Grade II-listed house, where Gaskell wrote novels including Cranford and Wives and Daughters, is set for extensive renovation work after Manchester City Council approved the scheme in November last year. Owned by the Manchester

Work is set to get underway on the restoration and redevelopment of a historic music hall in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, after the scheme secured a £1m grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF). The Shropshire Portal scheme will include the development of a new, sustainable museum and visitor information centre at the 13th century, Grade II*-listed Vaughan's Mansion and the Grade II-listed Music Hall and Assembly Rooms dating back to 1835.

Bewdley Museum will reopen to the public on 2 May following a £500,000 revamp. Improvements at the museum include a brand new Café, new exhibition galleries and updated educational facilities. The museums brass foundry has also been refurbished and the saw yard building has been expanded to provide more space for educational l activities. Museum technician Dave Darby said: "There is still a lot of work to do before we

The Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in Poland is in urgent need of a huge restoration fund to prevent the landmark holocaust site from crumbling into the ground. A Foundation was established in January to campaign leaders in Europe to donate money towards a 120m euro (£110m) Perpetual Fund to help conserve the WWII memorial to human tragedy for the education of future generations. The capital will be invested and ring-fenced by

The first sod has been cut on the £13.6m redevelopment of Bath’s Holburne Museum of Art. When it reopens, the Holburne will house a collection of fine and decorative arts, and will be fully accessible for the first time. A new garden café will also be built. The scheme has already received £10.6m of funding, comprising grants form the Heritage Lottery Fund, Lord and Lady Sainsbury’s Linbury Trust and Bath

Repair work has got underway in Reading, Berkshire, at the site of one of the town's most historic monuments, Abbey Ruins. Health and safety concerns had been raised about certain parts of the site last summer following a detailed inspection of the monument, undertaken by Reading Borough Council (RBC). IJP Building Conservation has been appointed by the council to carry out the repairs, which have initially focused on the Cloister

Manchester City Council has made a bid to the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) in order to secure funding towards the restoration of the historic Heaton Hall. The council has earmarked the restoration of the hall as the final part of a three-phase programme of improvements at Heaton Park in North Manchester, which has already seen the renovation of four of the park's other historic listed buildings including the Dower House

Italy's newest art gallery, Museo Nazionale delle Arti del XXI Secolo (MAXXI) in Rome, is set for a 2009 launch. Zaha Hadid Architects have designed the museum to be reminiscent of an ‘urban campus’, a building that goes beyond interior spaces to include the entire city. The project includes two museums – MAXXI art and MAXXI architecture – which will revolve around a full-height grand hall that connects with a

An appeal has been launched by the Nant Gwrtheyrn Trust (NGT) to raise a further £200,000 in order to complete a six-phase restoration scheme at the former quarrying village in Gwynedd, North Wales. The village, which is located on the northern coast of the Llŷn Peninsula, near Pwllheli, is home to a Welsh language and heritage centre, and includes an education centre, accommodation and conference facilities. Funding worth £3.5m has

The Dreamland Trust is to unveil its plans to establish the world's first heritage amusement park in Margate, Kent, on the site of the former Dreamland Amusement Park. Levitt Bernstein Architects, together with Paris-based theme park designer Jean-Marc Toussaint, is behind designs for the proposed £12m attraction, which will be built around the Grade II-listed scenic railway, one of the oldest rollercoasters in Britain. The trust, which administers the Save

A historic World War II codebreaking centre at Bletchley Park in Buckinghamshire is set to undergo vital repair work after Milton Keynes Council (MKC) agreed to match a funding pledge by English Heritage. When English Heritage announced in November that it was investing £330,000 to fund repairs to the Grade II-listed mansion's roof, it also pledged a further £100,000 a year over a three-year period starting in April providing match-funding

The Tower Theatre Company (TTC) has unveiled plans to build a new theatre on a site confirmed by Museum of London Archaeology as being the location of London's first purpose-built playhouse. An excavation of the site in Shoreditch, which is currently occupied by a disused warehouse, has uncovered what is believed to be the inner wall of The Theatre, a polygonal theatre built by James Burbage in 1576. Trustees of

The Scottish Government has been called upon to help provide funding for the creation of a new landmark building on Dundee's waterfront that could house a proposed Victoria and Albert (V&A) Museum. Kevin Keenan, chair of the Dundee Waterfront Board (DWB), wants to see an iconic 'anchor' building developed as part of the wider regeneration of the city's waterfront, in order to capture the public's imagination and to act as