Displaying items by tag: Renovation

Salvatore Ferragamo said Monday it has pledged to donate 600,000 euros, or $826,140 at current exchange, to renovate eight rooms at the Uffizi Gallery in the Florence. The works should allow the museum to reopen the rooms within a year and display about 50 works dating back to the 15th century.

The Uffizi is home to many famous works such as Botticelli’s “The Birth of Venus” and “La Primavera”; Filippo Lippi’s “Madonna with Child and Two Angels”; Caravaggio’s “Bacchus”; and the recently restored “Madonna of the Goldfinch” by Raphael.

The Tacoma Art Museum is counting to the opening of its new wing and renovations of its exisitng space, now scheduled for public debut on Sunday, Nov. 16, 2014.

According to the museum's Juliana Verboort, the project’s centerpiece is the new Haub Family Galleries, showcasing the Haub Family Collection of Western American art. The collection places the museum among a select few in the United States, and the only museum in the Pacific Northwestern region, with a Western American art collection of this caliber.

A line of people snaked along the walkway to the Chrysler Museum of Art on Friday evening.

"It's exciting," said Kathie Moore of Norfolk. She was among those in line for a members preview event. She hadn't been inside yet, but she already appreciated the new landscaping and outdoor sculptures.

"I've missed it terribly," she said.

The Chrysler Museum of Art reopens today to the public after being closed for just over 16 months during a $24 million expansion and renovation project.

Friday evening, more than a thousand members, out of about 3,000, flooded the museum for a reopening party.

The National Galleries of Scotland announced today, 1 May 2014, that Gareth Hoskins Architects has been appointed to oversee a major transformational project at the Scottish National Gallery over the next 4 years.

Galleries devoted to the national collection of historic Scottish art will be radically overhauled and significantly expanded whilst greatly improving visitor circulation and facilities at the Scottish National Gallery. The iconic building situated at The Mound in the centre of Edinburgh currently welcomes over a million visitors each year. The development aims to almost double the display space for Scottish art within the Scottish National Gallery designed by William Henry Playfair (1790-1857) and which opened in 1859.

The New York Public Library has pulled the plug on its planned stack attack.

The NYPL announced Wednesday it was abandoning plans to turn its iconic branch on 42nd St. from a research facility into a circulating library, a scheme that would have required the demolition of the historic book stacks under the landmark building’s Rose Reading Room.

“Throughout this process our focus has been making this library even better for our millions of visitors by creating an improved space for our largest circulating branch,” library president Tony Marx said.

The latest design of a planned addition to the Milwaukee Art Museum drew praise at a public hearing Tuesday night, with the Lakefront Development Advisory Commission unanimously recommending approval for the project.

The commission in April 2013 unanimously approved the initial museum addition design, which was done by architect Jim Shields of HGA Architects and Engineers.

But a revised design — made by HGA but without Shields — unveiled last month drew criticism. The Journal Sentinel's Mary Louise Schumacher called it "a dose of dullness for our most prized public space."

Another revision, this one with Shields back at the helm, was unveiled Tuesday.

The Whitney Museum of American Art will open its new downtown Manhattan home next year with an exhibition of works from its permanent collection, followed by shows dedicated to artists including Archibald Motley and Frank Stella, museum officials said Thursday.

Officials made the announcement at the unfinished facility, offering a behind-the-scenes look as construction continues at the space next to the High Line elevated park and looking out on the Hudson River. The new museum, the Whitney's fourth home since it was founded in 1930, is expected to open in Spring 2015.

Paris’s Picasso museum, which houses one of the world’s most extensive collections of the Spanish painter’s work, is set to reopen its doors in September after being closed for five years for renovation, the culture ministry announced Sunday.

The popular museum was originally to be closed for a two-year renovation and the delay has caused controversy, with the painter's son Claude Picasso on Friday accusing the French government of indifference and saying he was "scandalised and very worried" about the future of the museum.

On May 2, Frank Lloyd Wright’s S.C. Johnson Research Tower in Racine, Wisconsin, will open to the public for the first time since it was completed in 1950. Visually striking but functionally flawed, the fifteen-story industrial tower was shuttered in 1982, but not before gaining National Register of Historic Places status in 1976.

Noted for its tree-like structure, the S.C. Johnson Research Tower is regarded as one of the country’s most important examples of cantilevered architecture. The Tower’s floors are supported by a central core, which houses a narrow stairway, small elevator, and utility lines. Glass tubes surround the tower, providing natural light, which proved overly efficient on hot days. Despite its imperfections, Johnson employees created some of the brands most ubiquitous products (Glade air freshener, Pledge furniture polish, and insecticides Off! and Raid) within the Tower's walls.

After researchers moved out of the Tower over thirty years ago, the building sat mostly empty until this year, when S.C. Johnson finished a five-year, $30 million renovation of the Research Tower and neighboring Administration Center, which was also designed by Wright and opened in 1939. The Administration Center relies on pillars for structural support, which allowed Wright to use glass tubing for exterior walls, much like he did for the Research Tower. Wright also designed the furnishings for the S.C. Johnson Research Tower and Administration Center.

Visitors to the S.C. Johnson complex can explore a new exhibit focused on Wright’s homes in Spring Green, Wisconsin, and Scottsdale, Arizona. The show was organized in partnership with the Milwaukee Art Museum and the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation and includes some of the architect’s own home movies. A second exhibition presents a mock research lab from the 1950s, complete with beakers, flasks, centrifuges, balances, test tubes, and graduated cylinders found in company storage rooms.

Wright, a Wisconsin native, designed commercial buildings, apartment towers, recreational complexes, museums, religious houses, residences, furniture, lighting features, textiles, and art glass. According to the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, “he redefined our concept of space, offering everyone the opportunity to live and grow in nourishing environments, connected physically and spiritually to the natural world.”

Free, two-hour tours of the Research Tower and Administration Center will be offered from 9AM to 2:30PM Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays through September 27.

The Museum of Biblical Art in New York City will host an unprecedented exhibition of sculptures by Donatello along with works by Filippo Brunelleschi, Luca della Robbia, Nanni di Banco, and others. The works, which were created for the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo in Florence, have never been on view in the United States.

“Sculpture in the Age of Donatello: Renaissance Masterpieces from Florence Cathedral” will feature 23 works created for Florence’s Duomo by leading masters of the Italian Renaissance. Highlights include Donatello’s “Lo Zuccone (Habbakuk),” which was created during the most productive period of his career; two recently restored bronze heads, one by Donatello and the other by Michelozzo di Bartolomeo, which were made for the singing gallery that Donatello fashioned for the Duomo’s interior; and three early 15th-century stone reliefs derived from scenes from the Florence Baptistery’s Gates of Paradise by Lorenzo Ghiberti. A full-scale cast of Ghiberti’s Gates of Paradise will be on view in New York City at a location that will be announced in the months leading up to the monumental exhibition.

The Museum of Biblical Art, an independent museum that explores the Bible’s impact on art, is the sole venue for the exhibition. The Duomo is currently undergoing an expansion and renovation that is expected to reach completion in October 2015.      

“Sculpture in the Age of Donatello: Renaissance Masterpieces from Florence Cathedral” will be on view at the Museum of Biblical Art from February 20 through June 14, 2015.