Antoni Gaudí's Casa Vicens in Barcelona, Spain, is to be turned into a museum celebrating his work. It will open during the second half of 2016. The house was built in 1889 and is a UNESCO-listed World Heritage site. Gaudí, who lived from 1852 until 1926 is the best known practitioner of Catalan Modernism – a style centred in Barcelona and expressed mainly through architecture. Casa Vicens is the first

A US$400m (£262m, €359m) Vietnamese theme park and leisure complex has been conceptualised and masterplanned by leisure consulting company International Theme Park Services (ITPS). Construction is already under way in the popular tourist destination of Halong Bay. ITPS collaborated with Wyatt Design Group and Hetzel Design on different aspects of the 140-hectare (345 acre) project. It's being built by Da Nang-based Sun Group Corporation, one of Vietnam’s leading hotel and

South Korea’s government is planning to fast track the development of a W93.4bn (US$78.9m, €70.8m, £51.8m) national aviation museum, according to the country’s Ministry of Transport A competition will be held in October this year to choose the architect and the museum will open some time in 2018. The transport museum will be built on the site of the Gimpo International Airport, just outside Seoul, and will celebrate South Korea’s

Alaska’s Anchorage Museum has announced plans for a US$17.5m (€15.7m, £11.2m), 25,000sq ft (2,300sq m) expansion to create new spaces for its permanent art collection. Designed by Anchorage-based McCool Carlson Green, the Rasmuson Wing is being privately financed by Ed Rasmuson, members of the Rasmuson family and the Rasmuson Foundation who own the Rasmuson Centre which the museum is a part of. The development will add a storey on to

SO-IL has revealed its design for an art gallery in Brooklyn, New York, which explores the relationship between both exterior and interior, and light and dark. The four-storey Artes Amant – expected to complete by 2017 – is a haven for modern art, where artists can create, display and store their work. The designs for the 1,320sqm (14,250sq ft) Artes Amant began with the inside, looking first at the functionality

Currently undergoing a US$125m (€112m, £80m) redevelopment to celebrate its 20th anniversary, the Peterson Automotive Museum in Los Angeles has said it will open on budget and in line with its original schedule. Set to reopen on 5 December, having closed in October 2014, the museum is being clad with a new exterior by Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates. The exterior will comprise a stainless steel shell following multiple contours in

More than 100,000 visitors have visited an unusual seaside-inspired installation at the National Building Museum in Washington, DC, causing online ticket sales to be ceased to ensure current ticket holders can be accommodated. The temporary exhibit, entitled BEACH, has been installed in the museum’s famous Great Hall and is the work of architecture practice Snarkitecture. The Brooklyn-based firm’s 10,000sq ft (929sq m) interactive architectural exhibit – made from a mishmash

26 high-profile names have been selected from a field of nearly 500 as the architectural elite battle it out for the chance to convert a flour mill in Qatar into an art gallery. The three-stage Doha Art Mill development had 489 entries total from 56 different countries across five continents, with Renzo Piano, David Chipperfield and Atelier among the 26 names on the long-list. Selected on the basis of two

Singapore’s National Gallery will open to the public at the end of this year with a new S$532m (US$379.6m, €344m, £243.7m) development housing the world’s largest public collection of Singaporean and Southeast Asian art inside two of the country’s most historical buildings. Designed by Studio Milou Singapore, in partnership with CPG Consultants, National Gallery Singapore is housed within two heritage buildings in the city’s Civic District. Taking up the former

Adjaye Associates have submitted plans for the proposed US$122m (€110m, £79.1m) Studio Museum in Harlem – an institute promoting the work of artists of African descent. The five-storey museum by British-Tanzanian architect David Adjaye will be built on the existing site of New York’s Studio Museum, marking the 50th anniversary of the institution which also champions local artists. The plans offer 70,000sq ft (6,500sq m) of space, 10,000sq ft (929sq

The Seoul Metropolitan Government has launched a new architectural competition centred around culture and heritage at the heart of the 600-year-old South Korean capital’s city centre. The international contest asks entrants to develop a comprehensive blueprint and masterplan for central Seoul and provide a creative design for the site of the former National Tax Service Building. The new city centre will be a space that 'integrates cultural heritage, with contemporary

Shigeru Ban’s latest project – the Oita Prefectural Art Museum – has opened in Japan, becoming an artistic piece in its own right to inspire the local community, acting as a “cultural catalyst.” Located on the southwestern island of Kyushu, the building’s timber-lattice clad structure – in reference to the region’s history of producing fine wood crafts – covers three floors and is designed so the external walls, comprised of

The architect of a project originally conceived as a “world-class women’s history museum" in London's East End, but now being marketed as a museum dedicated to Jack the Ripper, has said his firm was completely unaware of the plans to change the museum’s purpose. Andrew Waugh, director of architecture firm Waugh Thistleton, said he had worked with former museum founder –former Google executive Mark Palmer-Edgecumbe – on the designs, which

Design consultancy Mather has been awarded the contract for a new project in the heart of Brussels dedicated to Belgian beers. Working alongside local architects Robbrecht en Daem and Baneton Garrino, Mather will convert the former Brussels Stock Exchange into the Belgian Beer Palace exhibition, which is hoping to rival the likes of the Guinness Storehouse in Dublin and the BRC-designed Heineken Experience in Amsterdam. Occupying two floors of the

“With big projects like this one, there's always going to be controversy,” said Nicolas Moreau, co-founder of Moreau Kusunoki, the Paris-based practice that won the competition to design the Guggenheim Helsinki. Moreau Kusunoki – founded by husband and wife team Nicolas Moreau and Hiroko Kusunoki – were announced as the winners of the Guggenheim Helsinki competition in June. Their design features a series of linked pavilions and a glass-topped 'lighthouse-style'

Zaha Hadid’s latest project – the final instalment of six mountain-top museums in Italy’s Dolomites curated by explorer Reinhold Messner – has welcomed its first visitors, offering stunning views of the surrounding mountains. Built into the mountain rock at a height of 2,275m (7,463ft) above sea level, Messner Mountain Museum Corones is dedicated to the discipline of mountaineering and offers unique views of both the Dolomites and the Alps. Zaha

Italian architectural practise, Archea Associati, has created a ceramic museum in Liling, China, comprised of a number of vase-like structures. Set for completion later this year, the volumes are arranged in a circular plan and clad in a variety of patterns and colours. The architects say the inspiration was the city’s ceramic heritage and the client’s wish to include various functions on the site, including a museum, a hotel and

Elephants at the Kaeng Krachan Elephant Park at Zoo Zurich, in Switzerland, now have an architecturally designed enclosure, thanks to Markus Schietsch Architekten, who designed an elaborate new habitat. The 73,000sq ft (6,782sq m) enclosure includes shelter within a wood and ETFE geodesic dome, with a glass enclosed swimming pool. A series of open air spaces, with rocky terrain and dense vegetation, are connected to this sheltered habitat. The impressive

Concorde is to be the crown jewel in a £16m (US$25m, €23m) aerospace museum, after the proposed attraction in Bristol, UK, was granted planning permission by local authorities. To be housed on the former Filton Airfield – one of the birthplaces of the British aviation industry – the Bristol Aerospace Centre by Purcell will be comprised of two refurbished World War One aircraft hangars, which will be transformed into a

UNStudio have been chosen to design a new city centre theatre in Den Bosch, the Netherlands. The design competition involved the local residents voting for one of two finalists and UNStudio received 57 per cent of the vote, seeing off competition from Rotterdam studio Ector Hoogstad Architects. The Theatre on the Parade will be located on the large and lively public square, which was an important consideration in the design:

Following the devastation caused by April’s Nepal earthquake the Architects Foundation (AF) – an arm of the American Institute of Architects – has outlined plans to rebuild parts of the Himalayan nation, with like-for-like earthquake-resilient design principles being implemented. The Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) Commitment to Action, sees the AF partner with disaster relief NPO All Hands Volunteers (AHV), to execute the replicable US$3m (€2.8m, £1.9m) reconstruction plan for Nepal,

McInnes Usher McKnight Architects' (MUMA) “highly-original” extension and refurbishment of Manchester’s Whitworth art gallery has made the shortlist of six for this year's Stirling Prize. It was described by award organisers, the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), as “a project for all seasons, where art, nature and architecture combine” which “could be the eulogy for a building which is neither high-key nor overtly fashionable”. The Whitworth reopened on 14

Located at the southernmost tip of South America, a new research centre promoting sustainable tourism will be designed by Ennead Architects. The New York-based studio will work with Chilean architects Cristian Sanhueza and Cristian Ostertag to create the Cape Horn Sub-Antarctic Center, having won the commission from the Chilean Regional Government following a public competition. It will be located within the UNESCO Cape Horn Biosphere Reserve in Puerto Williams, a

The University of California, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAM/PFA) will move into a new home on 31 January 2016 in downtown Berkley, bringing the two institutions under one roof for the first time since 1999. Designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro, the US$112m (£72.5m, €100m) 83,000sq ft (7, 710sq m) project integrates a pre-existing 48,000sq ft (4,459sq m) art deco building – the former 1939 printing plant

A competition for the development of a 6,000sq m (64,583sq ft) visitor attraction based on the fairytales of Hans Christian Andersen has been launched in Odense, Denmark. Part of a downtown regeneration of Odense, the contest comes two years after an initial contest kicked off on the same site for a ‘House of Fairytales’. Transborder Studio, Rodion Kitaev and London-based Leith Kerr Architecture were named winners of the previous contest,

The Peabody Essex Museum (PEM) in Salem, Massachusetts, has revealed finalised plans for its US$200m (€108.8m, £130m) facility expansion as part of a larger ongoing US$650m (€587.6m, £422.2m) Advancement Campaign. Based on initial work by Rick Mather Architects, with subsequent work from Richard Olcott of Ennead Architects, the museum will gain a new 40,000sq ft (3,716sq m) wing for galleries and temporary exhibition space, while a new 80,000sq ft (7,432sq

The Hong Kong Museum of Art is to close in August for a four-year HK$930m (US$120m, €109m, £78m) renovation, which will nearly double the amount of exhibition space available to the 53-year-old institute. Scheduled to reopen in 2019, the museum’s main exhibition area will be expanded to 10,000sq m (107,600sq ft), with an additional three galleries also being developed, increasing the total number to 10. The re-christened Hong Kong Art