Briefing
Herzog & de Meuron wins competition to build a new museum in Berlin; LACMA receives a USD$25m donation towards its ambitious extension
Herzog & de Meuron wins competition to build a new museum in Berlin; LACMA receives a USD$25m donation towards its ambitious extension
- Swiss architecture firm Herzog & de Meuron, which recently completed work on the Tate Modern Switch House in London, has been selected from a shortlist of 42 to build a new museum of 20th-century art in central Berlin. At a press conference, Hermann Parzinger, the president of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, said that the chosen design ‘makes a very strong statement. It achieves an almost impossible feat by healing this place and bringing together these buildings.’
- Eric Smidt, the chairman and CEO of US hardware store Harbor Freight Tools, has donated USD$25m towards the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s (LACMA) new 368,000-square-foot building, which has been designed by architect Peter Zumthor. The donation represents a milestone for LACMA, which has now raised close to half of the required funds following recent pledges of USD$50m Elaine Wynn, co-founder Mirage Resorts and Wynn Resorts, and USD$25m from A. Jerrold Perenchio, former chairman of Univision.
- The Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art in SoHo, New York, has begun work on an ambitious expansion project that will see its space jump from 3,300 to 5,600 square feet. The institution, which was co-founded by Charles Leslie and Fritz Lohman in 1987, has taken over the commercial space alongside its current venue on Wooster Street.
- Carolyn Marsden-Smith has been appointed associate director for exhibitions at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles. Marsden-Smith, who is currently head of exhibitions at the British Museum, London, will assume her new role in January of next year, succeeding Quincy Houghton, who will join the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
- The Italian culture ministry is working to ascertain the extent of the damage caused to heritage sites by two earthquakes that struck last week in central Italy. The church of San Salvatore in Campi di Norcia, the foundations of which were tested by the fatal earthquake that destroyed the town of Amatrice in August, has now collapsed, while the façade of the Basilica of Sant’Eutizio in Preci and the church of Santa Maria in Via in Camerino have also been severely damaged.
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