Twenty-five is the magic number for the long-awaited Wolf Museum of Exploration + Innovation (MOXI), which will launch on the 25 February after receiving US$25m (€23.2m, £19.8m) in capital funding. The project also took more than 25 years to complete, after being first proposed in 1990 when the Children’s Museum of Santa Barbara incorporated as a non-profit organisation. The 25,000sq ft (2,300sq m) MOXI broke ground in 2014. The signature

The Municipality of Rotterdam has announced that engineering firm BAM Bouw en Techniek (BAM) has been awarded the contract for the construction of the Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen. Designed by Dutch architects MVRDV, the building will store the art collection of Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, opening it up for public use, and will provide storage facilities for private art collectors. The founders of MVRDV – Winy Maas, Nathalie de Vries

An expansive new complex for for the Zhejiang Museum of Natural History, designed by David Chipperfield Architects, has topped out in China. Set in an area of natural beauty among the forests and hills of Anji County, Zhejiang province, the museum buildings will be spread across eight low-rise pavilion buildings, the shells of which have now been completed. With a total area of 54,000sq m (581,250sq ft), the museum will

Adjaye Associates, David Chipperfield, Richard Murphy, Allies & Morrison, Barozzi Veiga and KPMB have been announced as the architects who will compete to design a multi-purpose concert hall and arts centre for Edinburgh. The high-profile shortlist has been announced by IMPACT Scotland, the charitable trust overseeing the major cultural project in the city’s St Andrew Square. In total, 69 international firms expressed interest in the project after it was announced

The shortlisted designs for a £40m (US$50m, €47m) national Holocaust memorial and learning centre in London have today (27 January) gone on public display, revealing how the ten competing teams have responded to the brief for an emotionally powerful and sensitively designed monument. The international design competition was launched by the UK Holocaust Memorial Foundation in September 2016. Ninety-two teams entered, and this was narrowed down to a final ten

A Danish science museum dedicated to celebrating curiosity has reopened today (26 January), wowing visitors with a 100m (328ft) long twisting copper staircase and walls that are partly built using recycled beer cans. The Experimentarium opened in the town of Hellerup in 1991, but its original home was largely destroyed in 2015 when initial expansion work had already taken place. The design brief of architecture studio CEBRA, who won the

A Danish science museum dedicated to celebrating curiosity has reopened today (26 January), wowing visitors with a 100m (328ft) long twisting copper staircase and walls that are partly built using recycled beer cans. The Experimentarium opened in the town of Hellerup in 1991, but its original home was largely destroyed in 2015 when initial expansion work had already taken place. The design brief of architecture studio CEBRA, who won the

A Danish science museum dedicated to celebrating curiosity has reopened today (26 January), wowing visitors with a 100m (328ft) long twisting copper staircase and walls that are partly built using recycled beer cans. The Experimentarium opened in the town of Hellerup in 1991, but its original home was largely destroyed in 2015 when initial expansion work had already taken place. The design brief of architecture studio CEBRA, who won the

Spirituality, creativity and artistic freedom are driving a major collaboration between architects Schmidt Hammer Lassen and light artist James Turrell for the ARos Aarhus Art Museum, the co-founder of the Danish practice has told CLAD. Morten Schmidt said that the vast installation being installed as part of the museum’s €40m (US$43, £31m) expansion plan, the Next Level, will allow visitors to “experience real colour and energy” as art and architecture

The Museum of London has secured £180m (US$224.4m, €208.7m) towards its £250m (US$311.7m, €289.9m) target to finance a move to the iconic Smithfield Market. The City of London Corporation will contribute £110m (US$137.1m, €127.5m) to the scheme, with the Sadiq Khan pledging a further £70m (US$87.2m, €81.1m) – the largest cultural investment made by any London mayor in history. The museum announced plans to relocate in March 2015, with management

The life and art of the famous Japanese painter and printmaker Katsushika Hokusai is celebrated in a new Tokyo museum, design by SANAA’s Pritzker Prize-winning architect Kazuyo Sejima. The Sumida Hokusai Museum, located in the ward of the same name, is the sculptural home for over 18,000 works created by Hokusai and his apprentices over 200 years ago, including the artist’s most famous work – ‘The Great Wave Off Kanagawa'.

The Mandai nature and wildlife park planned for an area near Singapore Zoo has kicked off the development phase with a “ground-seeding ceremony” and revealed fresh details about the project. Developer Mandai Park Holdings (MPH) says the S$1bn (US$703m, €657m, £570m) project will include a bird park, a rainforest park, an indoor attraction and eco-accommodation. Aside from these attractions, there will be plenty of public park and landscaped spaces with

Work is progressing on a US$7.2m (€6.8m, £6m) upgrade to Jamaica’s Appleton Estate Rum Tour, with Jack Rouse Associates (JRA) taking charge of completely redeveloping the historic brand’s visitor experience. Scheduled for completion in October 2017, work will include the renovation of the existing sugar estate and distillery that has been handcrafting rums since 1749, with the addition of modern rum tasting rooms, an expansive retail store, and a new

France’s most iconic landmark is about to undergo a €300m (US$320m, £260m) renovation, with officials announcing a massive 15-year project that will preserve the attraction for many decades. The 128-year-old structure, originally designed by Gustave Eiffel as a temporary structure for the 1889 Universal Exhibition, now attracts more than 7 million visitors a year and is a symbol of the French capital. Works will include a full structural analysis, with

Robert Konieczny, the principal of Polish architecture studio KWK Promes, has described how he won the World Architecture Festival’s 2016 Building of the Year prize by creating a museum that doubles as a “city-forming” public space for the people of Szczecin, Poland. The National Museum and Dialogue Centre Przelomy – which explores the city’s history of Nazi occupation, resistance against post-war Soviet communist authority, and eventual transition to democracy –

The British Film Institute (BFI) has confirmed Thailand’s PACE Development Corporation is its preferred bidder to fund its planned International Centre for Film, TV and the Moving Image on London’s South Bank. A BFI representative told CLAD the organisation is “now in contract negotiations” with the developer, which impressed “following a procurement process for process to test the market for investors.” The institute wants to create a flagship national home

New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art has delayed plans to redevelop its southwest wing by as long as seven years, as the famous institution aims to get its finances in order. Deficits have led the museum to cut US$31m (€29.1m, £25.4m) from its annual operating budget, something it has achieved with voluntary buyouts and layoffs, also increasing retail revenue in its stores. With the museum trying to balance its books

New York’s American Museum of Natural History has unveiled new details for its US$340m (€319m, £277m) Gilder Center – a massive development intended to expand the institution’s role for scientific research and education. Adding a 21st century facelift to the 150-year-old museum, the development is being designed by Studio Gang Architects under the leadership of Jeanne Gang, with exhibit design by Ralph Appelbaum Associates and a new design for a

Factory, the flagship arts building for the north of England designed by Rem Koolhaas’ Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA), has been granted planning approval by Manchester City Council. Construction will begin in Q1 2017 on the large-scale venue, which has been designed to reflect the “extraordinary creative vision and breadth of Manchester’s cultural life”. Ellen van Loon and OMA founder Rem Koolhaas are leading the project. The £110m (US$137.2m, €129.6m)

George Lucas’s long-held dream to build a museum celebrating the art of storytelling may finally come to fruition, with the Hollywood director closing in on an agreement to construct the complex in Los Angeles’ Exposition Park. The long-running saga – which has seen the project beset by legal battles and location changes – took a surprising twist last month when Lucas unveiled alternative designs for the museum in LA and

Museo Atlántico – Europe’s first underwater museum – has been inaugurated as British underwater sculptor Jason deCaires Taylor’s creation of more than 300 works opens 12m (39ft) below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean. Located just off the coast of Lanzarote, Taylor’s sculptures are made from specialised marine cement that is 20 times more durable than normal construction cement and impervious to saltwater. Installed between February and December 2016, a

A new museum dedicated to the founding fathers of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) opened in Dubai on Saturday (7 January). Located on the waterfront of the emirate, the wavy design of the Etihad (Union) Museum is inspired by the shape of a manuscript, with its seven tapering columns emulating the seven pens used to sign the 1971 Union agreement that created the UAE. The project design team, led by

Artist Nayan Kulkarni has installed a 75m-long (250ft) rotor blade in the centre of Hull – the first in a series of temporary installations marking its year as UK City of Culture. Commissioned in partnership with Siemens and with the support of Green Port Hull, “Blade” is part of Look Up – a year-long programme for Hull 2017 that will feature a number of artists creating works designed to look

A big tent festooned with neckerchiefs will be the centrepiece of a new museum dedicated to the international Scouting movement. Architecture studio Tate Harmer have won a competition to design the £6m (US$7.3m, €7m) project, which will be located at Gilwell Park in Chingford, east London – the “spiritual home” of the UK branch of the Scouting Association, and the place where first Scout leaders were trained in 1919. The

Two Barcelona architecture studios will design “one of the leading art museums in the Nordic region” after winning an international competition to create a new home for the Sørlandets Kunstmuseum in Kristiansand, Norway. Mestres Wage Arquitectes and MX_SI Architectural Studio from Barcelona will transform a former 1930s wharf-side grain silo into an elegant complex anchoring the city’s new cultural quarter. The design – which was selected over 100 other anonymous

In a saga beginning to rival his Star Wars franchise for length and drama, George Lucas appears to have finally sealed the deal to develop his Museum of Narrative Art following almost two years of legal disputes. The well-known director is now set to select a location for the venue in either San Francisco or Los Angeles (both in California), after snubbing Chicago, Illinois. According to The San Francisco Chronicle,

Ground has been broken on the US$49m (€43.4m, £37.2m) facility expansion of the Peabody Essex Museum (PEM) in Salem, Massachusetts. Founded in 1799, PEM is the country’s oldest continuously operating museum. Plans originally envisioned a US$200m (€177m, £151.6m) expansion, but were abandoned following the death of the project’s architect Rick Mather in 2013. New plans based on the original designs of Mather, with subsequent work from Richard Olcott of Ennead