The hotly-anticipated Marciano Art Foundation – a new art museum created by wHY Architecture and Design – opens tomorrow (25 May) in Los Angeles’ Windsor Square; within one of the city’s most unusual buildings. The 100,000sq ft (93,000sq m) arts space is housed inside the secretive former Scottish Rite Masonic Temple, designed by Californian painter and architect Millard Sheets in 1961. wHY’s founding partner, Kulapat Yantrasast, was tasked reinterpreting the

Horsen’s 162-year-old Prison Museum in Denmark has debuted a new permanent exhibition chronicling the escape of former prisoner Carl August Lorentzen. The exhibition, called Lorentzen’s Tunnel, tells the story of Lorentzen, a burglar who after 11 months of work had dug an 18-metre-long (60 foot) tunnel that led him to freedom on Christmas Eve 1949, leaving a note in his cell saying “where there’s a will, there’s a way”. While

Italy’s government is giving away more than 100 historic buildings for free on the understanding that any prospective owners must turn their site into a heritage attraction. Hoping to breathe new life into disused public buildings, including castles, farmhouses and monasteries, the scheme was unveiled by the government-run Agenzia del Demanio (ADD) – Italy’s state property agency. "The goal is for private and public buildings which are no longer used

As the Museum of London formulates plans for its £250m (US$324m, €291m) move to the iconic Smithfield Market, its exhibition team is digging deep to present London’s history in new ways – including opening up the site's underground passages for a glimpse of what the city was like in Victorian times. The museum was given the green light to move to its new home in January 2016, after alternative redevelopment

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 team behind the development of Guggenheim Abu Dhabi have asked contractors to renew their tender bids, indicating the long-stalled development could be about to splutter back into life after several years on the shelf. Speaking to Arabian Business, a senior executive with one of the bidding companies said the Tourism Development and Investment Company (TDIC) had recently asked them to renew their bid bond. “The commercial bid was submitted

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

Architecture studio Scott Brownrigg have unveiled their design for the proposed new home of the Museum of Military Medicine in Cardiff. The museum’s directors want to relocate the attraction from its current home at Keogh Barracks near Aldershot to Cardiff Bay, and the vision for what the planned new building will look like was presented this week for public consultation. The collections of the four corps of the Army Medical

The Victoria and Albert (V&A) museum is using the £100,000 (US$130,000, €118,000) prize it received in 2016 for winning the Art Fund’s Museum of the Year to launch a programme to support art and design education in secondary schools. Called DesignLab Nation, the scheme is an evolution of the brainchild of former V&A director Martin Roth, which sent touring exhibitions to museums and art schools across Britain until 1977, when

The US$305m (€278.2m, £235.1m) Phillip and Patricia Frost Museum of Science is celebrating its grand opening today following a major expansion and redevelopment. The hotly-anticipated museum – which sits in a prominent location on Miami’s waterfront in the city's Museum Park – has navigated through difficult circumstances to reach this stage. Pharmaceutical entrepreneurs Patricia and Phillip Frost had to step in last year to fill a US$45m (€41m, £34.7m) funding

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

Barack and Michelle Obama, the former president and first lady of the United States, have today (4 May) unveiled the design of the planned Obama Presidential Center on Chicago’s South Side. Designed by Todd Williams Billie Tsien Architects, the complex will be formed of a museum dedicated to Obama’s presidency, a library of his archives and a forum to advance the Obama Foundation’s public mission to promote global progress. Visitors

The architect behind the American Museum of Natural History's hotly-anticipated new wing has made a passionate plea for investment in science education, saying: "You've got people denying climate change. It's a crisis." In an exclusive interview with CLAD, Jeanne Gang talks about her work with the museum, the masterplan and dolphin sanctuary she is creating for the Baltimore National Aquarium, Studio Gang's temporary installation for the National Building Museum and

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

Kodak has announced plans to create a brand home in Rochester, New York, with leading design firm Jack Rouse Associates (JRA) selected to plan, design and implement the 9,000sq ft (836sq m) Experience Centre. Part of a 10-year masterplan to breathe life into the Eastman Business Park, the centre will explore Kodak’s innovations in photography, film, printing, digital imaging, and chemistry. Telling the story of the Kodak brand, the centre

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

London’s upcoming Postal Museum has confirmed that it will open its doors to the public later this year, with the £26m (US$33.2m, €30.5m) attraction set to launch in July. Created to chronicle five centuries of social and communication history across Britain, the Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios-designed Postal Museum has been financed through the Heritage Lottery Fund, Royal Mail and Post Office, in addition to support from a number of individual

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

An international design competition is to be held in the next few months for a new concert venue in the heart of Kaunas, Lithuania. Malcolm Reading Consultants (MRC) has been appointed by Kaunas City Municipality to run the one-stage design contest, which will identify an architect to build a world-class music venue, called the M.K. Ciurlionis Concert Centre, with multifunctional spaces for public and community events. The initiative follows the

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

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

The Scottish Seabird Centre has unveiled its plans for a new visitor centre at its site in North Berwick, near Edinburgh. The £5.5m proposal would continue the work of the Seabird Centre, an educational destination that enables guests to engage with and learn about wildlife. However, the charitable conservation centre, which opened in 2000, is currently struggling to keep up with visitor demand. The project, dubbed the National Marine Centre,