Displaying items by tag: project

The Smithsonian Institution’s Hirshhorn Museum & Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C. has decided to abandon its Seasonal Inflatable Structure project, also known as “the Bubble.” Smithsonian Secretary G. Wayne Clough and Undersecretary Richard Kern announced the decision after the museum’s Director, Richard Koshalek, resigned due to the board of trustees’ inability to reach a consensus in regards to the project. Koshalek will step down on June 29, 2013.

The bubble project, which was considered Koshalek’s signature project, has been in debate since 2009 but was continually stalled due to rising construction costs and conflicting feelings about the structure’s purpose. The original vision was to create a 150-foot-tall bubble that would connect the inside and outside of the Hirshhorn and create additional space for installations and performances. Designed by Diller Scofidio & Renfro, the bubble was expected to cost over $12.5 million to create and install. Previous fund-raising efforts brought in about $7.8 million.

When it was first announced, the Bubble garnered national attention and was applauded for being highly innovated.

Richard Koshalek, the director of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C., announced his resignation on May 23, 2013 after three years with the institution. Koshalek’s decision was prompted by the Hirshhorn’s board of trustees’ failure to reach a consensus in regards to a plan to cover the museum’s courtyard with a temporary inflatable bubble, which has been continually stalled.

Koshalek made the announcement during a board meeting, which was centered on the bubble project. During the meeting, the 15 board members were unable to agree whether or not to continue fundraising for the project. Officials said that the bubble will remain under consideration even after Koshalek’s departure.

If created, the bubble would connect the inside and outside of the Hirshhorn and create additional space for installations and performances. Designed by Diller Scofidio & Renfro, the bubble is expected to cost over $12.5 million to create and install. Fundraising efforts have brought in about $7.8 million to date.

The Speed Art Museum in Louisville, KY announced that it has exceeded its $50 million fundraising goal for its Changing Speed expansion and renovation project by $334,000. The campaign’s success will allow the museum to complete Phase I and II of its plan, which includes building a new North Building, a central utilities building, and an art park and piazza.

The New North Building will span 62,500-square-feet and will double the museum’s overall physical space. The state-of-the-art renovation will include larger spaces for special exhibitions, contemporary art galleries, a family education welcome center, indoor and outdoor cafes, a museum shop, and a multifunctional pavilion for lectures and performances.

A major family gift made by civic leader Christy Brown will allow the Speed Art Museum to complete Phase III of its plan, which includes building a new South Building and extensive renovations to the existing structure. Brown made an $18 million contribution to the project in honor of her late husband, Owsley Brown II. The new 9,500-square-foot South Building will include additional gallery space and a state-of-the-art theater that will be capable of showing 16mm and 35mm films. The South Building will also include a renovated 5,600-square-foot gallery in the Speed’s current structure to house the museum’s significant collection of early Kentucky fine and decorative arts, which includes paintings, sculptures, furniture, silver, and other objects.

Work on Phase III of the Speed’s plan is underway and Phase I and II are expected to start this summer. All construction and renovations are expected to reach completion by the winter of 2015 and a grand re-opening is slated for early 2016.

Louisville philanthropist Hattie Bishop Speed founded the Speed Art Museum in 1925. It is the oldest, largest, and foremost art museum in Kentucky. The Speed is currently closed for the renovations but a temporary exhibition space was established in downtown Louisville’s Nulu district.

After news spread that New York’s Museum of Modern Art planned to tear down the former home of the American Folk Art Museum on West 53^rd Street in Manhattan, opponents launched a petition asking MoMA officials to reconsider the decision.

The petition was launched by New Haven, CT resident, Robert Bundy, and has accrued over 2,000 signatures. In a letter written to MoMA’s director, Glenn D. Lowry, and the museum’s chief architecture curator, Barry Bergdoll, Bundy asks that MoMA preserve the building rather than raze it, which he claims would be an architectural loss for the city of New York.

The building in debate was designed by notable New York-based architects Tod Williams and Billie Tsien to house the Folk Art Museum. The project was completed in 2001 but after falling into financial turmoil, the Folk Art Museum decided to sell the building to MoMA and move to a smaller location.

The decision to level the structure, which features a sculptural bronze façade, is part of MoMA’s overarching expansion plans. Officials claim that the former Folk Art Museum building doesn’t mesh well with MoMA’s neighboring sleek, glass façade. The Folk Art building is also set back slightly from MoMA making expansion logistics more complicated.

In Bundy’s letter he writes, “We ask that the Museum of Modern Art reconsider its position and save the former American Folk Art Museum. The destruction of the building will result in MoMA no longer being regarded as a protector and promoter of the arts.” The petition can be found on change.org’s website.

Two years ago, the Folk Art Museum in New York City was on the brink of closure due to its poor financial standing. Most of the museum’s troubles stemmed from a $32 million construction project that placed a flagship building next door to the Museum of Modern Art on West 53^rd Street in Manhattan. After the project drew to a close in 2001, the Folk Art Museum struggled to pay off their debt to the Trust for Cultural Resources and in 2009 the institution defaulted on its payments. Desperate, the Folk Art Museum sold their flagship building and moved into a smaller space and drastically reduced its budget.

Now, after some major sacrifices, it appears that the Folk Art Museum has regained its footing. Attendance is expected to reach 80,000 this fiscal year, which ends June 30, 2013; last year the Folk Art Museum welcomed 66,000 patrons. A number of major donors are back on board with the museum including the Blanchette Hooker Rockefeller Fund, which recently gifted $25,000 to the institution. The Folk Art Museum will also participate in this summer’s highly anticipated Venice Biennale by sending an artwork from its collection to the show.

The Folk Art Museum has been strengthening its relationships with other institutions through collaborative exhibitions. The museum is currently hosting an exhibition of William Matthew Prior (1806-1873) oil paintings titled Artist and Visionary: William Matthew Prior Revealed (on view through May 26, 2013), which was organized by the Fenimore Art Museum is Cooperstown, NY. The exhibition Bill Traylor: Drawings from the Collections of the High Museum of Art and the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, which features a range of works by the self-taught artist, Bill Traylor (1854-1949), will open on June 11 and run through September 22, 2013.

Officials at Harvard University in Cambridge, MA announced that they will open the newly renovated and expanded Harvard Art Museums in the fall of 2014. The project, which began in 2008, has entailed a complete reinvention of Harvard’s museum system and will place the Busch-Reisinger Museum, the Arthur M. Sackler Museum, and the Fogg Museum of Art under one state-of-the-art roof.  

Renowned architect Renzo Piano was enlisted to transform 32 Quincy Street, the landmark building that currently houses the Fogg and Busch-Reisinger museums, into Harvard’s artistic hub. The new facility will combine the 32 Quincy Street building, which was constructed in 1927, with a new addition and a striking glass rooftop structure that will allow controlled natural light into the facility’s conservation lab, study centers, and galleries. The overhaul also includes a theater for lectures and public programming.

The Arthur M. Sackler Museum, which was established in 1985 in a separate building from the Fogg and Busch-Reisinger, has remained open during the recent construction. The Sackler will close June 1, 2013 to prepare for the relocation of its remarkable Asian art collection to 32 Quincy Street.

The Bush-Reisinger Museum, which was founded in 1903, is the only museum in North America dedicated to the art from the German-speaking countries of Central and Northern Europe. The Fogg Art Museum, which opened to the public in 1896, boasts extensive holdings of American and European art from the Middle Ages to the present.  

The Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C. has announced that its Renwick Gallery, which houses the museum’s American craft and decorative arts collection from the 19^th to 21^st centuries, will undergo a major renovation. The Renwick Gallery, which opened to the public in 1972, will close to accommodate the project in early 2014 and is expected to reopen in 2016.

Project details are still being worked out and an exact cost for the renovations is yet to be determined. The Smithsonian is planning to use public funds to pay for half of the project and the rest will be paid through private partnerships. The project has already received a $335,000 grant from the National Park Service’s Save America’s Treasures initiative, as the Renwick Gallery is located in a National Historic Landmark building. The building’s construction began in 1859 and went on to house the city’s first art museum, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, upon its completion.

Museum officials plan to convert all of the Renwick Gallery’s lighting to energy efficient LED lights and wireless Internet access will be provided throughout the entire gallery. Heating, plumbing, electrical, air conditioning, and fire safety systems will all be gutted and replaced. This will be the Renwick Gallery’s first renovation in 40 years.

A formal ground-breaking ceremony for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s new David H. Koch Plaza was held on January 14, 2013 in New York. The $65 million project, which was announced in February 2012, has been underway since October but was postponed due to complications associated with Hurricane Sandy. The plaza is expected to reach completion in the fall of 2014.

Funded by Met trustee and philanthropist, David H. Koch, the project includes the installation of new fountains and the redesign of a four-block-long outdoor plaza that runs in front of the Met’s Fifth Avenue façade from 80^th to 84^th Streets. The sidewalks alongside the museum’s entrance, which see six million pedestrians a year, will also be repaired.

While the Met has made a number of indoor improvements over the years, the outdoor overhaul is much needed. Built in the 1970s along with the existing plaza, the museum’s original fountains, which are now deteriorated, will be replaced by contemporary granite fountains. The new structures will be positioned closer to the museum’s front steps, improving access to the street-level entrances. The redesign also includes tree-shaded allées, improved seating areas, and energy-efficient lighting. The Met’s iconic front steps will be left untouched.

Philadelphia-based landscape architecture and urban design firm, Olin, will be the lead design consultants for the project.

Yale University Art Gallery will celebrate the completion of a multi-year, multi-million dollar renovation and expansion on December 12. The project cost $135 million and increased exhibition space by about one-third. The museum, which is located in New Haven, CT, now boasts nearly 70,000 square feet and includes a gallery devoted to African, Asian, and Pre-Columbian art that was designed by Louis Kahn in 1953, the Old Yale Art Gallery, which features ancient, European, and contemporary art, and the 1866 Street Hall. The project joined all three buildings to create one cohesive institution.

Besides the physical expansion, the Yale University Art Gallery has significantly increased its collection’s holdings. The museum acquired 1,100 new works including African terra-cotta figures, Greco-Roman coins, medals from the American Revolution, and marble portraits of Marcus Aurelius and Plato over 1,700 years old.

The expansion and renovation were designed and led by Duncan Hazard and Richard Olcott, partners in New York’s Ennead Architects. The project took 14 years to complete and outfitted the museum with new areas for exhibitions and object study and increased access to the Gallery’s comprehensive collections.

While many feared the worst for Atlantic City while Hurricane Sandy battered New Jersey, the east coast’s gambling mecca made it out relatively unscathed. Even Atlantic City’s $13 million public art project, “Artlantic,” was spared. Scheduled to open this Friday, the project hopes to inject some culture into the city, which is mainly associated with waterfront casinos and its famed Boardwalk.

“Artlantic: wonder” is the first phase of the five-year project that was designed by freelance curator, Lance Fung. Dominated by two large outdoor spaces, the form for “Artlantic” drew inspiration from the city itself and the legendary roller coasters on Steel Pier. Sheltered from the storm by 22,000 sod staples, “Artlantic” survived the relentless wind and water summoned by Sandy.    

While installations by artists such as Kiki Smith and Robert Barry will appear in these outdoor spaces, another site will be unveiled on Friday. Stretching 8,500-square-feet, this site will include a wooden-walled stage created by the artist John Roloff. When not being used for performances, the stage will be a stand-alone abstract artwork.

The Atlantic City Alliance, a marketing agency, and the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority, are splitting the cost of “Artlantic” and have received funds from local businesses. The project organizers are using private land that is on loan for “Artlantic” meaning the land can be developed by the owners at any time. Hopefully the project will fulfill its five-year run, adding a new facet to an already iconic city.