Displaying items by tag: Renovation

Tate Britain will unveil its new look on November 19, 2013 as part of The Millbank Project. The renovation, which was helmed by Caruso St. John Architects, follows the opening of ten new galleries and is part of the first phase of the twenty-year project.

The recent $70 million project includes the reopening of Tate Britain’s main entrance on Millbank, the reopening of the Whistler Restaurant, new learning studios, the reopening of the museum’s balcony in the Rotunda, which has been closed since the 1920s, and site-specific works by three contemporary artists. Penelope Curtis, the director of Tate Britain, said, “The new Tate Britain opens up the Millbank entrance to reassert and enhance the original grandeur and logic of the galleries. Adam Caruso and Peter St. John have created new spaces out of old ones and artists have helped to articulate a new sense of the public realm.”

The subsequent phases of the The Millbank Project will be implemented after 2014 and will aim to restore the galleries in the museum’s south-west quadrant, create a new suite of galleries and transform Tate Britain’s landscape facing the River Thames.

The Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, MA has selected New York-based Ennead Architects to design their $200 million, 175,000-square-foot expansion. The project is part of the museum’s comprehensive, $650 million Advancement Campaign, which was announced in 2011. The goal of the Campaign is to celebrate outstanding artistic and cultural creativity in ways that transform people’s lives. Besides the expansion, which will include galleries, a restaurant and additional space for public programs and education, the endeavor includes reinstalling the museum’s collection, several infrastructure improvements and other initiatives.

Ennead Architects previously designed the renovation and expansion of the renowned Yale University Art Gallery. The firm has also worked on projects at the Brooklyn Museum, Natural History Museum of Utah and the Rose Center for Earth and Space at the American Museum of Natural History.

Groundbreaking for the Peabody Essex Museum’s expansion project is expected to commence in 2015 and the new wing is slated to open in 2019. The museum will remain open throughout the renovation process until the final months, when the collection will be reinstalled.

Thomas P. Campbell, Director and CEO of The Metropolitan Museum of Art In New York City announced that one million people have visited the institution’s New Galleries for American Paintings, Sculpture, and Decorative Arts since opening to the public on January 6, 2012. The galleries, which were expanded, reconceived, and reinstalled, average 2,000 visitors per day -- about 11% of the Met’s overall attendance.

The New Galleries present works ranging from the 18^th century through the early 20^th century arranged in chronological order. Highlights from the New Galleries include Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze’s Washington Crossing the Delaware and works by American masters such as John Singleton Copley, Thomas Cole, Frederic Edwin Church, Winslow Homer, Thomas Eakins, John Singer Sargent, and Frederic Remington.

The renovation of the Met’s New Galleries was part of a comprehensive, decade-long project to redesign the museum’s entire American Wing. The overhaul added 3,300 square feet of gallery space to the American Wing and allowed for a more in-depth presentation of the Met’s remarkable American art collection. Nearly all of the American Wing’s 17,000 holdings are now on view. 

A fire broke out at an historic 17^th century mansion in Paris on Wednesday, July 10, 2013, destroying artworks dating back hundred of years. The mansion, known as Hotel Lambert, was acquired by the Qatari royal family in 2007 and was in the midst of controversial renovations when the blaze took place. The fire devastated murals, paintings and frescoes by French luminaries such as Charles Le Brun (1619-1690).

The architect Louis Vau designed Hotel Lambert, which overlooks the Seine, in the 1640s for the wealthy financier, Nicolas Lambert. The mansion is considered one of the finest examples of mid-17^th-century French architecture, boasting frescoes by Le Brun and other masters of the day including Eustache Le Sueur (1617-1655). In addition to its impressive interior, the Hotel Lambert was home to many powerful figures over the centuries including the philosopher, Voltaire. When the Qatari royal family purchased the mansion, critics feared that one of France’s historic gems would be destroyed, especially after the family revealed plans to renovate the estate.

Dozens of firefighters battled the blaze at the UNESCO-designated mansion for nearly six hours. The cause of the fire has not been determined and is still under investigation by police.

Back in December 2012, officials at the New York Public Library released a number of important details pertaining to their $300 million renovation. Part of the project involved clearing out the back portion of the library, which is housed in a landmark building on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan.

The plan has 1.2 million volumes being relocated to a storage space under Bryant Park as well as another facility in Princeton, NJ. Most of the exiled books are now available digitally and library officials purposely chose rarely requested books to be relocated. With the newly freed up space, the architecture firm Foster & Partners, plan to create a four-level atrium with curving balconies filled with bookshelves and reading tables overlooking Bryant Park. It will be the first time since the library was built in 1911 that patrons will be able to see the park.

The library received a fair amount of criticism after announcing their plans to renovate and Advocates for Justice, a nonprofit organization, has just filed a lawsuit on behalf of five preservations and scholars. The plaintiffs are arguing that the library is violating its charter and the state’s constitution by removing the aforementioned books. The suit also claims that the library failed to conduct an environmental impact review for the renovation plans. While the library recently applied for building permits, officials claim that they are for “preliminary work” and that the designs have not been finalized.

The busiest public research library in the United States, the New York Public Library is expected to span 100,000 square feet after renovations are complete. Construction is slated to begin this summer and is expected to last until 2018.

An exhibition of monumental works by the British sculptor Henry Moore (1898-1986) is now on view at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. The show, which includes 12 large-scale sculptures, inaugurates the museum’s new “outdoor gallery,” which was created as part of a major institution-wide renovation that concluded this spring.

The exhibition was organized in collaboration with the Henry Moore Foundation and features many works that have never been on public view in the Netherlands. Highlights of the exhibition include Reclining Woman: Elbow 1981, which has not left the Leeds Art Gallery since its creation over 30 years ago; the interactive sculpture Large Two Forms 1966; and Large Reclining Figure 1984, which measures nearly 30 feet tall. The sculptures, which are made of either bronze or fiberglass, span Moore’s post-war career and include his semi-abstract forms as well as his renowned sculptures of reclining figures.

The Henry Moore exhibition is the first in a series of annual international sculpture displays that will take place at the Rijksmuseum over the next five years. Moore’s sculptures will be on view in the gardens through September 1, 2013.

The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art presents 8 large-scale steel sculptures by Mark di Suvero (b. 1933) at historic Crissy Field for a free, yearlong exhibition. Organized in partnership with the National Park Service and the Golden Gate National Parks, the exhibition kicks off an extensive program of off-site exhibitions that SFMOMA will offer while the museum is undergoing a massive renovation and expansion. The museum is slated to re-open in early 2016.

Mark di Suvero at Crissy Field spans 5 decades of the artist’s career and coincides with di Suvero’s 80^th birthday. The exhibition, which includes one never-before-seen sculpture, is the largest survey of the artist’s work ever presented on the west coast. Crissy Field offers striking views of the Golden Gate Bridge, which has long been a source of inspiration for di Suvero who immigrated to San Francisco from Shanghai as a child.

Mark di Suvero at Crissy Field will be on view through May 26, 2014.

A major step has been taken in the Menil Collection’s master plan to create a “neighborhood of art” on their 30-acre campus. The Houston museum has chosen landscape architect Michael Van Valkenburgh to helm the expansion, which consists of the construction of six buildings dedicated to art, an outdoor sculpture park, bungalows, and green spaces spread across several blocks. Van Valkenburgh, who has offices in Brooklyn, NY and Cambridge, MA, has redesigned Pennsylvania Avenue at the White House (Washington, D.C.), Brooklyn Bridge Park (New York), Hudson River Park (New York), and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (Boston). The London-based firm David Chipperfield Architects is directing the Menil’s overarching expansion plan, which includes the creation of new green spaces, walkways, visitor amenities, and gallery buildings.

Renzo Piano designed the Menil, which was founded by collectors John and Dominique de Menil, in 1987. The museum houses the de Menil’s comprehensive collection of 20^th century art, which includes works by René Magritte (1898-1967), Man Ray (1890-1976), Henri Matisse (1869-1954), Jackson Pollock (1912-1956), Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), and Mark Rothko (1903-1970). The museum also includes a separate gallery dedicated to Cy Twombly (1928-2011), which was also designed by Piano.  

The first phase of the renovation is expected to kick off in September 2013.

San Francisco’s Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) broke ground on its highly anticipated expansion on Wednesday, May 29, 2013. Around 300 supporters gathered to witness the kick-off of the construction project that will add 225,000-square-feet to the museum. The renovated space is expected to reopen in 2016.

 Snøhetta, an international architecture, landscape architecture, and interior design firm based in Oslo, Norway and New York City, designed SFMOMA’s expansion, which is expected to cost around $610 million. 89% of the capital has already been collected through fundraising. Officials upped their original estimate for construction from $555 million in May.

 SFMOMA’s expansion will more than double the existing exhibition space and provide nearly six times as much public space as their currently Mario Botta-designed building. The renovation will create a new outdoor terrace, a sculpture terrace, and state-of-the-art conservation studios. The museum will also take a more environmentally sensitive approach to day-to-day operations. SFMOMA hopes to gain LEED Gold certification by reducing their energy costs, water use, and wastewater generation.

On May 23, 2013, after a two and a half year renovation, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York will unveil 45 updated and expanded galleries of European paintings. The new space, which has increased by about a third, boasts 600 works of art dating from 1250 to 1800. Arranged in chronological order and grouped by country, the collection includes the Met’s renowned holdings of early Dutch, French, and Italian paintings.

The reimagined European painting galleries include 23 high profile loans, mainly from private collections. Works by Jan Van Eyck (1395-1441), Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665), Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510), and Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) will be on view for at least six months thanks to the generosity of the Met’s trustees, and patrons.

The Met’s European painting galleries have not been fully renovated since the early 1950s. When the new galleries open next week, the Met will offer various walking guides as well as online versions of the tours.