Shigeru Ban’s €170m (US$189.4m, £145.2m) concert venue for Paris has opened on an island in the Seine. Designed with French architect Jean de Gastines on the site that once belonged to France’s biggest factory, La Seine Musicale has been conceived as a both new cultural symbol for the French capital and a music venue that will host all types of performance, from classical to contemporary. The island of L'île Seguin

The co-founder of international architecture practice Snøhetta, Kjetil Trædal Thorsen, has spoken to CLAD about the opportunities and philosophical questions posed by the advent of technology that enables vulnerable heritage sites to be “reprinted.” Advances in 3D scanning, casting and printing are allowing designers and preservationists to create mirror images of both natural and man-made pieces of heritage. Examples include the Institute for Digital Archaeology, which has recreated Syria's Palmyra

A 13m (43ft) bird of prey has found a perch front of the new US$1.5bn (€1.3bn, £1.1bn) home of NFL franchise the Atlanta Falcons. The statue, which represents the team’s signature falcon, is the biggest bird representation in the world and the biggest sculpture ever created by Hungarian artist Gabor Miklos Szoke. It’s wingspan is 20m (66ft) long and it weighs 73,000 pounds (33 tonnes). Millions of people will enter

South Korea’s culture ministry has launched an international design competition for a National Museum of World Writing, to be built in on the side of a vast lake in Incheon city. The 15,650sq m (168,400sq ft) building will dedicated to the collection, conservation, research and exhibition of international writing systems from across the globe. Described by the competition organiser as “an international hub for writing research and policy exchange”, it

The architecture firm of Chilean Pritzker Prize winner Alejandro Aravena have won an international competition to design a “pre-eminent” Art Mill museum on the historic waterfront of Doha, Qatar. An international jury today (15 May) announced the selection of Elemental from an eight-strong shortlist, based on their strategies for the Doha Bay site and its links to the wider city. The museum will be built on a complex that has

The Los Angeles Planning Commission has officially approved on Star Wars creator George Lucas’ plans to build the long-gestating Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Exposition Park. The decision was finalised yesterday (11 May), according to news service NBC Los Angeles. New renderings and information released by Lucas and MAD Architects, who have designed the spacecraft-like museum, reveal the latest iteration of the green lit project. The museum will have

A seemingly doomed plan to build a new world-class concert hall in the City of London has been given a new lease of life, with an architecture competition launched to find a concept design team. The Barbican performing arts centre, the London Symphony Orchestra and Guildhall School of Music & Drama have together fired the starting pistol on the competitive process for the venue, called The Centre for Music, calling

An international architecture competition has been launched for the renovation of one of Brussels’ modernist masterpieces to create a new satellite for the world-famous Pompidou Center art museum. The Urban Development Corporation of the Brussels-Capital Region is seeking a design team to lead the €125m (US$136m, £104m) Citroën Cultural Centre project. As well as the 15,000sq m (161,500sq ft) Pompidou branch, there will also be a 10,000sq m (107,600sq ft)

The architecture practice of Sir David Adjaye will lead the design of a major library and events centre in the city of Winter Park, Florida. Adjaye Associates have been hired by the Winter Park City Commission to work alongside HuntonBrady Architects on the project, which will be located in the northwest corner of the city’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Park. The building will be the new home of the Winter

Swiss architect Peter Zumthor has presented his designs for the extension of Renzo Piano’s Fondation Beyeler in Basel. The CHF100m (US$101m, €92.2m, £78.1m) project will be constructed on the previously private land of the Iselin-Weber Park. It will see the addition of a simple service building for administration and deliveries, a transparent pavilion for events and a House for Art to display expanded collections of modern and contemporary art. The

David Chipperfield has overcome stiff competition to win the high-profile design competition to create a 1,000-capacity concert hall in Edinburgh. Adjaye Associates, Richard Murphy, Allies & Morrison, Barozzi Veiga and KPMB were all in contention for the commission, but the vision outlined by Chipperfield's practice was enough to sway the developers of the £45m (US$58.1m, €53.2m) venue; the city’s first new performance building in 100 years. The concert hall has

The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has formally withdrawn his support for a Thomas Heatherwick-designed Garden Bridge across the River Thames; bringing a likely end to a project that has fiercely split opinion. In a letter to Lord Mervyn Davies, chair of the Garden Bridge Trust, which has been overseeing the controversial crossing, Khan said the lack of all the necessary land use agreements and a significant funding shortfall mean

To celebrate its 40th anniversary, the foundation of iconic British sculptor Henry Moore has opened a new visitor centre and archive dedicated to his work. The Henry Moore Foundation was founded in 1977 to encourage public appreciation of the artist’s work and to support emerging talent. In the last four decades it has awarded over 2,000 grant awards totaling £31m (US$39.7m, €36.4m). To mark its birthday, the organisation has upgraded

Work is nearing completion on Jamie Fobert Architects’ cliffside extension of Cornwall’s Tate St Ives, with an official opening date now set for 14 October this year. A four-year construction project, the plans go back 12 years to 2005 when the London-based Jamie Fobert was first appointed to double the size of the museum. In addition to lengthy delays because of planning issues, Jamie Fobert lost the project in 2011

Kengo Kuma’s US$33.5m US$33.5m (€31.3m, £26.2m) expansion of Portland’s Japanese Garden, celebrated as one of the most authentic of its kind gardens outside Japan, has opened to the public. The project, Kuma’s first public commission in the US, has seen the creation of a new Cultural Village that provides additional space to accommodate the attraction’s rapid visitor growth and immerses visitors in traditional Japanese arts and culture. To honor the

Vessel, Thomas Heatherwick’s centerpiece for the public square and gardens at the Hudson Yards development in New York, is rising from the ground. The first pieces of the sculptural urban landmark were placed together earlier this week on Manhattan’s West Side. The public will be able to follow construction progress from vantage points on the High Line and from Hudson Park and Boulevard over the upcoming months. Vessel will be

Los Angeles’ Academy Museum of Motion Pictures isn’t following the Hollywood script during its construction, with skyrocketing costs and lengthy delays holding up the long-awaited project, according to new reports. The Renzo Piano-designed museum, which will be dedicated to exploring and curating the history and future of the moving image – was originally budgeted at US$250m (€233m, £195m) when it was first conceived several years ago, but since then costs

The ever-busy architecture practice of Kengo Kuma have added yet another large-scale leisure project to their growing slate of work: the Odunpazari Modern Art Museum in the Turkish city Eskisehir. A series of overlapping stacked wooden volumes will form the 3,582sq m (38,500sq ft) museum building, which will display collections of Turkish contemporary art. Located in a recently developed area of the city’s Odunpazari district – which is known for

The West Kowloon Cultural District Authority (WKCDA) has invited young local architects to conceive an eye-catching temporary pavilion for Hong Kong, with high-profile designers including Thomas Heatherwick, Sou Fujimoto and James Corner judging their efforts. The inaugural Hong Kong Young Architects & Designers Competition is is intended as a platform for emerging architects and designers “to showcase their creativity and potential” and gain valuable experience. The competition is open to

Architecture studio Lemay have released new visualisations of the glass envelope they are planning to add to architect Victor Prus’ 1971 landmark Grand Theatre in Quebec. The international firm recently won a design competition for the renovation project, alongside local firm Atelier 21. Together they will revive the Brutalist building, the prefabricated concrete facade of which is facing severe deterioration. A new protective 5,900sq m (63,500sq ft) glass casing will

Antoni Gaudí was the creator of Barcelona’s most famous and significant buildings and parks, including Sagrada Familia and the Palau Güell. Now, final preparations are underway to give the public an inside look at one of his lesser-known architectural landmarks in the city: the Casa Vicens summer home. The house – originally designed by the 31-year-old Gaudí for financial broker Manel Vicens i Montaner between 1883 and 1885 – will

Architecture studio Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners (RSHP) have been commissioned to design a major extension to the British Library in London. The design team will build 100,000sq ft (9,300sq m) of new spaces on a 2.8 acre site to the north of the library’s Grade 1 Listed building at St Pancras. Their design will include facilities for learning, exhibitions and public use, in addition to a new northern entrance

Swiss architect Peter Zumthor has revised his much-discussed design for the new US$600m (€565.5m, £483.2m) home of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). His initial vision for a black organically-shaped structure, inspired by the nearby La Brea tar pits, has changed to something harder-edged and a different colour – with light earthy tones now set to be used for the monolithic facade. According to LA Times, Zumthor presented

Construction has commenced on a new £3.8m (US$4.7m, €4.4m) visitor centre for the famous Yorkshire Sculpture Park; one of northern England’s most popular tourist attractions. The project, located in the city of Wakefield, has been billed by architects Feilden Fowles as “the practice’s most prestigious cultural commission to date.” The park, which is celebrating its 40th anniversary, welcomes around 500,000 visitors every year. It hosts permanent and temporary sculptures, including

UPDATE: A dramatic new museum celebrating some of the world’s most famous prehistoric cave art has opened at the Lascaux Cave complex in France. The €66m (US$70.3m, £56.2m) International Centre for Cave Art is located in the town of Montignac-sur-Vézère, at the foot of the hill where the Lascaux caves – adorned with the highest concentration of Paleolithic cave art in Europe – were discovered in 1940. Within the new

An opening date of 23 June 2017 has been announced for Renzo Piano’s first completed building in Spain: the Botín Center art museum in Santander. Designed in collaboration with Luis Vidal Architects, the building was described by Botín Foundation director general Inigo Sáenz de Miera on 30 March as “a unique place for art, and an engine that generates economic, social and cultural wealth for northern Spain.” The building is

The Philadelphia Museum of Art has officially kickstarted “a new phase of transformation and renewal”, with construction underway on an important phase of architect Frank Gehry’s wide-reaching masterplan for the institution’s main building. Around 67,000sq ft (6,225sq m) of public space – including 11,500sq ft (1,070sq m) for new American Art galleries and 11,500sq ft for contemporary art exhibitions – is being added to the museum as part of Gehry’s