The Bass – a contemporary art museum on Miami Beach – has been given a reopening date of 8 October following a US$12m (€10.7m, £9.3m) renovation headed by project architects David Gauld and Arata Isozaki. First opened in 1964 inside the Russell Pancoast-designed former Miami Beach Public Library and Art Center, the then Bass Museum of Art has been in operation ever since, with the institution focusing on exhibitions of

Disney has celebrated the launch of its new Avatar land at Animal Kingdom with the operator marking the occasion by hosting a ‘Dedication of Pandora’ at the Orlando theme park. Based on the world of the 2009 Avatar movie, the striking ‘Pandora – The World of Avatar’ covers roughly 12 acres (48,500sq m) and feature multiple rides and attractions, entertainment, audio-animatronics, 3-D holograms as well as retail, food and beverage

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

The mayor of Seoul, Won-soon Park, has officially opened a 983 metre long botanical “floating walkway” along a transformed city highway. Designed by Dutch architects MVRDV, the Skygarden, known as Seoullo 7017, is a linear park featuring 24,000 plants, trees, shrubs and flowers from 200 local species – creating “a walkable plant library” for residents and visitors to the city. “Skygarden offers a living dictionary of plants which are part

Architect Marc Fornes has created a platform for people to express themselves creatively and spontaneously, with a vibrant green pavilion in a Maryland park. Located in Merriweather Park, Columbia, The Chrysalis is formed of a collection of cascading meshed aluminium arches that vary in size and function. The largest arch frames 'Stage Alpha', dimensioned, equipped and structured for official events, including the performances of musicians. Adjacent is 'Stage Beta', a

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

Weifang, China, is now home to an engineering marvel following the opening of the largest spokeless Ferris wheel in the world. Sitting over the Bailang River, the Bailang Bridge Ferris Wheel is located on the 1,771ft (540m) bridge that crosses the body of water in Shandong Province. Tianjin Craftsman Manufacture constructed the record-breaking wheel, which is the first to be built using a kite grid design, also described as a

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

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

The developer of a proposed US$150m (€135.6m, £116.4m) waterpark development in Niagara Falls, New York, is eyeing a 2020 completion date for the long-touted project. A public-private partnership between the Uniland Development Company and the state, the updated Wonderfalls masterplan sees a glass-enclosed waterpark at the heart of a complex surrounded by restaurants and retail to “create a vibrant pedestrian experience”. “We have spent a lot of time with our

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

Plans to create a US$75m museum in Colorado Springs dedicated to the Olympic movement have moved a step closer to becoming a reality, with the final pieces of essential funding reportedly now in place for the project. According to the Colorado Springs Gazette the US Olympic Museum could break ground in the next few months after the city’s Urban Renewal Authority agreed to issue bonds partly financing construction. The decision

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

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)

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

A team led by landscape architecture studio Grant Associates with WilkinsonEyre has won an international competition to design a 41 hectare Friendship Park in northern China’s first and largest ‘eco city’. At the heart of the landscape will be a conservatory complex comprising five glass biomes, each housing tropical plant collections and water gardens. A wetland centre, an urban dock, play areas, an event lawn and amphitheatre will also be

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

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

“Endless political wrangling” is responsible for the likely abandonment of London’s Garden Bridge project, its designer Thomas Heatherwick has claimed. Last week London mayor Sadiq Khan said his office will not guarantee to underwrite the bridge’s operational and maintenance costs, if private funding and commercial operations can not cover them. Planning permissions for the bridge require such a commitment from the mayor. In a letter to Lord Mervyn Davies, chair