A groundbreaking ceremony will be held tomorrow (15 December) for the transformation of the iconic Trans World Airlines (TWA) Flight Center at New York’s JFK International Airport into a 505-room hotel. The modernist terminal building – a designated New York landmark – was designed by renowned Finnish-American architect Eero Saarinen and opened in 1962, soon becoming a symbol of the Jet Age. However, it ceased operating in 2001 and has

Dutch design agency NorthernLight is working on a wide range of hands-on exhibits and science and art installations as part of the high-profile expansion at Experimenta science centre in Heilbronn, Germany. The 13,500sq m (145,000sq ft) extension, which is currently under construction and is slated to open in late 2018, was designed by Berlin-based Sauerbruch & Hutton and aims to be an “architectural lighthouse” for Heilbronn. The facility includes four

Canadian architects Office OU have been announced as winners of South Korea's international competition to masterplan a National Museum Complex (NMC) in the new administrative city Sejong. Choongjae Lee, the city’s administrator, has vowed to build “the world's most beautiful and liveable city” through investment in architecture, technology, urban planning and design and environmental sustainability. The design contest was held to select a vision for a complex containing five museums:

The first design images of a new contemporary art museum in Moscow, located within a former military factory complex, have been revealed. The new Exhibition Centre of the state-run Hermitage Museum has been designed by New York studio Asymptote Architecture, whose co-founder Hani Rashid presented the plans at a public forum last week. The building, set to open in 2020, will be a luminous, semi-transparent, abstractly formed structure. Inside, the

The Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) has awarded £9.1m (US$11.5m, €10.7m) to the Silverstone Heritage Experience, guaranteeing development of a new permanent exhibition at the home of British motor racing. Sitting at the main entrance to the race circuit, the exhibition by Mather & Co will create a series of interactive exhibitions and displays to be housed inside the only remaining Second World War hangar on the Silverstone site. For the

The sweeping air flow around a 1920s aeroplane has inspired Zaha Hadid Architects’ eye-catching new mathematics gallery for London’s Science Museum, which opens to the public tomorrow (8 December). Mathematics: The Winton Gallery explores how mathematicians, their tools and their ideas have helped build the modern world over the past four centuries. It has been designed at a cost of £5m (US$6.3m, €5.8m) as one of several new educational spaces

Bob Rogers, founder and chair of experience design firm BRC Imagination Arts, has said that visitor attractions must be designed as “netmarks” – a concept that takes into account social media impact on physical design. BRC last month completed the first phase of a multi-year, multi-million dollar revamp of Cleveland’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, introducing a 78-foot-long and 6-foot-tall row of red letters spelling the words

Moreau Kusunoki, the architecture studio behind the failed attempt to bring the Guggenheim art museum to Helsinki, have expressed their “disappointment” at the council’s decision to block the project. However, the philosophical founders of the Paris-based practice, Nicolas Moreau and Hiroko Kusunoki, told CLAD that the process of designing the project as an “extraordinary adventure” despite the result of the council’s vote, which was recorded as 53 to 32 against.

Plans for the much-debated Guggenheim Museum in Helsinki have fallen through after city councillors rejected a proposal to provide state aid for the project’s development. During recent budget talks, the co-ruling nationalist Finns party objected to the €40m (US$42.4m, £33.5m) support costs offered by the government, especially during a time when Finland’s economy is struggling while the government pushes through a multi-billion Euro austerity measure to try and curb public

South Korean architect Moon Hoon has designed an unusually-formed museum dedicated to the folk story of Pinocchio. The client, an avid collector of Pinocchio dolls, wanted a museum and gallery on the outskirts of Seoul where her collection could be experienced and explained. The museum complex, called Pino Familia, is formed of three buildings in close proximity, which surround a grassed inner court containing a sky-train, a pond and a

The City of London’s planning committee has green lit architect Eric Parry’s design for the district’s tallest tower. With a gross estimated area of 30,000sq m (323,000sq ft) and a height of 309.94m (1,016ft) above ordnance datum, the tower, called 1 Undershaft, will overtake Rogers Stirk Harbour & Partners’ Leadenhall Building as the tallest building in the City. A new public square and 2,000sq m (21,500sq ft) retail court will

Madrid’s historic Hall of Realms will be refurbished and transformed into an important art exhibition space by architects Foster + Partners and Rubio Arquitectura, after the pair were named winners of an international competition for the project. The space will form an expansion to the city’s Museo del Prado campus; Spain’s main national art museum. The Hall of Realms building was part of the 17th century Royal Buen Retiro Palace

London's Design Museum welcomes the public to its new home on Kensington High Street today (24 November) marking the culmination of one of the most innovative and unlikely architectural collaborations on a major leisure project in recent times. The museum is located inside the city’s former Commonwealth Institute Building, a Grade II* listed structure that had lain dormant for many years before architects OMA won a competition in 2008 to

Ennead Architects have broken ground on the Shanghai Planetarium for the Shanghai Science and Technology Museum (SSTM) in the city’s Lingang district. The international competition-winning design draws inspiration from astronomical principles, invoking the experience of orbital motion. Visitors will be guided through each of the building’s three principal forms – the Oculus, the Inverted Dome and the Sphere – that act as astronomical instruments, tracking the sun, moon and stars

Architects Diller Scofidio + Renfro and design studio Rockwell Group have unveiled their plans for an expandable cultural venue in New York’s burgeoning Hudson Yards district. The duo, who are both based in the city, have designed The Shed; a new centre for artistic invention set to open in early 2019. Currently under construction on the far west side of Manhattan, where the High Line meets Hudson Yards, the facility

The National Museum and Dialogue Centre in Szczecin, Poland has been declared the World Building of the Year 2016. Polish architecture studio Robert Konieczny KWK Promes were awarded the prize by a jury led by British architect David Chipperfield. The result - which caps what has been a transformative year for leisure architecture - was revealed at a gala dinner in Berlin on the final day of this year’s World

Danish studio Schmidt Hammer Lassen Architects have revealed the first design details of their collaboration with American artist James Turrell on a major expansion of the ARos Aarhus Art Museum. The €40m expansion plan, called Next Level, will add a 1,200sq m underground gallery and a gigantic semi-subterranean Turrell art installation called The Dome. Visitors will face “an experience in colour and light” as they travel through a string of

The architecture studio of David Chipperfield have announced significant progress on two key museum projects in their portfolio: an extension to the Kunsthaus museum in Zurich, Switzerland and an cultural complex near the Taj Mahal in India. A foundation stone laying ceremony for former project took place on Tuesday (8 November), with guests from the world of Swiss politics, business and culture joining Chipperfield, who helped bury a time capsule

Global architecture firm Foster + Partners have been appointed to redevelop London Zoo’s famous Snowdon Aviary. The Grade II* listed structure, designed by Cedric Price with Frank Newby and Lord Snowdon in 1962, was recently added to Historic England’s Risk Register for structures in danger of falling into disrepair due to the high expense of necessary repairs compared with the likely end value. The aviary was the first in Britain

The long-awaited Louvre Abu Dhabi has been delayed yet again, with the highly-anticipated project now postponed to 2017 due to pending construction work. The news is the latest in a string of setbacks for the project dating back to 2012. According to Reuters, multiple sources have reported there is still “work to be done” on the museum. Government officials had said at the end of 2015 that the museum was

The City of Helsinki has prepared a new funding proposal for establishing a Guggenheim museum in the city, after Finland’s co-ruling nationalist Finns party blocked state aid for the project’s development. During recent budget talks, the Finns objected to the €40m (US$45m, £33.7m) support costs offered by the government, especially during a time when Finland’s economy is struggling while the government pushes through a multi-billion Euro austerity measure to try

A major milestone in the construction of Kengo Kuma’s V&A Museum of Design Dundee in Scotland has been reached, with the completion of the upper floor revealing an extensive public area which will house galleries, learning spaces and a restaurant. At the ground floor level V&A Dundee will be formed of two separate buildings located on Dundee’s waterfront. The newly-completed second floor connects these two together, and houses many of

Five years on from its inception, Southend Council is searching for an architect to develop a £49m (US$59.6m, €54m) museum to house the Saxon King’s relics, launching a £1.3m (US$1.6m, €1.44m) bid to find a suitable candidate for the UK project. First touted in 2011, the council is searching for an architect-led design team to create a museum to display the golden relics discovered in the unknown Saxon King’s burial

The United Kingdom’s Royal Air Force (RAF) will celebrate its centenary in 2018 by renovating the RAF Museum in London into “a world-class visitor facility.” Nex–Architecture and Agence Ter Landscape Architects have been commissioned to revamp the historic site, which sits on the edge of the former Hendon Aerodrome in the city’s Colindale area. The airfield was one of the first in the country and was instrumental during the Battle

Dutch architects Mecanoo have taken inspiration from the UK’s Eden Project to propose an expansive experimental garden in the grounds of the Netherlands' Soestdijk Palace. The Dutch government recently launched a competition to redevelop the royal residence and estate, located in the town of Baarn. In response, Mecanoo have partnered with exhibition designers Kossmann.dejong and engineering consultancy Royal HaskoningDHV to develop their vision for an eco-attraction, called Eden Soestdijk. An

Architecture studio WilkinsonEyre have been selected to develop a brand new railway museum in Leicester, UK, after a period of public consultation. The new museum is a partnership between Great Central Railway, Leicester City Council and the York’s National Railway Museum. Located next to the historic railway terminus at Leicester North station, it will house significant locomotives and carriages from the UK’s national collection. Six candidates were in the running

Swiss studios Herzog & de Meuron and Vogt Landscape Architects have won the keenly-contested design competition for the Museum of the 20th Century in Berlin. Over 40 firms – including Sou Fujimoto, Zaha Hadid Architects, David Chipperfield, OMA, Snøhetta and SANAA – were invited to submit their proposals for the site, which will be located within the city’s cultural forum complex. The €200m (US$218.8m, £179.4m) museum will house a number