museums

Before planning your next trip, be sure to review the newly crowned winners of the Travel + Leisure Design Awards, which will be featured in the magazine’s March issue (on newsstands next Friday). The 2012 winners range from the Zaha Hadid-designed Sheikh Zayed Bridge in Abu Dhabi to the ultimate in travel-friendly apparel (the 1964 by Scott James blazer and Issey Miyake‘s eminently packable origami folding clothing). Many of this year’s favorites will come as no surprise, including the city-friendly Fiat 500 (best car) and Leica’s drool-worthy D-Lux 5 Titanium Set (best camera). Preston Scott Cohen‘s smart and sculptural Herta and Paul Amir Building at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art got the nod for best museum (edging out the Brad Cloepfil-designed Clyfford Still Museum, alas), and two NYC destinations—Jane’s Carousel Pavilion in Brooklyn and the Freitag Store—won for best public space and best retail space, respectively. Meanwhile, 2012 T+L Design Champion H.E. Mubarak Hamad Al Muhairi, the driving force behind Abu Dhabi’s transformation and evolution as a cultural and design capital, joins past honorees such as ubercollector Micky Wolfson, André Balazs, and Amanda Burden. Tasked with choosing “the best new examples of design” in 20 categories was a jury moderated by Chee Pearlman that included architect Billie Tsien, fashion designer Derek Lam, High Line pioneer Robert Hammond, and artist Michele Oka Doner. Keep reading for the full list of winners.
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“Wendy does not play the typical architecture game of ecological apology,” say the architects of their boundary-pushing pavilion, shown here in a rendering.

Who’s tripping down the streets of the city, smilin’ at everybody she sees? Who’s reachin’ out to neutralize an airborne pollutant? Everyone knows it’s Wendy! That’s right, fans of emerging architectural talent, the spiky and proactive creation of New York-based HWKN (Hollwich Kushner) has been declared the winner of this year’s MOMA PS1 Young Architects Program, besting finalists Ammar Eloueini of AEDS Ammar Eloueini Digit-all Studio (Paris and New Orleans), Martin Felsen and Sarah Dunn of UrbanLab (Chicago), and the solid Cantabrigian (Massachusetts) contingent: Mariana Ibañez and Simon Kim of I|K Studio and Cameron Wu.

Now in its thirteenth year, the Young Architects Program program challenges each year’s winners to develop creative designs for a temporary, outdoor installation at MoMA PS1 that provides shade, seating, and water. HWKN’s “Wendy,” which will debut in Long Island City in late June, is composed of nylon fabric treated with a nifty titania nanoparticle spray to neutralize airborne pollutants. This summer, Wendy will clean the air to an equivalent of taking 260 cars off the road. “Wendy crafts an environment—not just a space,” note the architects of their 5,000-square-foot creation. “Spikey arms reach out with micro-programs like blasts of cool air, music, water canons, and mists to create social zones throughout the courtyard.” And speaking of summery social zones, HWKN also was recently tapped to design a new entertainment complex to replace the Fire Island dance club, Pavilion, that burned down last year. The firm is collaborating with Diller Scofidio + Renfro on the project.

With Dallas awash in Shepard Fairey murals, it’s time to get ready for the next stop on your Southern U.S. street art tour! Atlanta’s High Museum of Art is now putting the finishing touches on its major KAWS exhibition. Opening next Saturday, February 18, “KAWS: Down Time” will be the beloved Brooklyn artist (né Brian Donnelly)’s largest show of new work to date and offers visitors the opportunity to watch him paint a 22-foot-high, site-specific mural in the lobby. A jazzy 24-foot-long triptych will invigorate the museum’s atrium. Meanwhile, curator Michael Rooks has marshaled an impressive gallery installation highlighted by a grid of 27 tondo paintings, like the 2011 Sponge Bob-meets-a giant flower pillow canvas that in November set a new world auction record of $188,500 for the artist at Takashi Murakami‘s “New Day: Artists for Japan” charity sale at Christie’s. The auction took place just days before the High installed KAWS’s monumental 2010 sculpture “Companion” (pictured) on its piazza. “KAWS has created a new order of American Pop,” says Rooks, who joined the High in 2010 from New York’s Haunch of Venison gallery. “His work is uncannily familiar but foreign at the same time, like in a dream, and it unites the often distant worlds of fine art and youth culture.”

Philip Johnson‘s Glass House will soon have a new leader manning the transparent and modern ship. Today, the National Trust for Historic Preservation announced that Henry Urbach will be taking over as director of the historic architectural landmark in New Canaan, Connecticut. Urbach most recently served as curator of architecture and design at SFMOMA, having taken leave from the position last spring to work independently, which included research work at the Glass House itself. Previously, he’d also run a popular gallery in New York for nearly a decade, the eponymous Henry Urbach Architecture. It is currently planned that he will take on the roll at the Glass House on April 2, replacing its current interim director, Rena Zurofsky, who had this to say about his selection:

I met Henry last spring and was struck by his energy and enthusiasm for the site. He seems to me ideal to lead the dedicated Glass House team into even more innovative and exciting programmatic terrain, and to push restoration programs on track. I congratulate Henry, and also Estevan Rael-Galvez, Vice President of Sites at the National Trust for Historic Preservation, on his astute choice.

After surviving a very rough and tumble summer, starting around mid-October, things were began looking tough again for both the Abu Dhabi Guggenheim and the Louvre wing that was also set to go up in the Middle Eastern cultural hub, and it only got worse from there. First, there was a semi-innocuous delay on the Frank Gehry-designed Guggenheim there, blamed originally on some government contract disputes. Then, as more news was released about a mass of unpaid bills and the entire United Arab Emirates quickly pulling their money out of any and all cultural projects to focus instead on Arab Spring-related matters, it was sounding like both projects might be entirely abandoned. So dire did it seem that the Guggenheim was quick to ramp back up their interest in building a new arm in Helsinki (though this could have been just convenient and beneficial timing). However, it now seems like perhaps both the Guggenheim and the Jean Nouvel-designed Louvre extensions have been placed back on track and all the worry may have been for naught. Yesterday, the Abu Dhabi Tourism Development and Investment Company announced that work will soon resume on the projects, as well as the surrounding Saadiyat Cultural District in which both will call home. The only thing changed will now be the opening dates, pushed back by a number of years. The Louvre, originally set to open sometime next year, is now slated for 2015. The Guggenheim, also originally set to open in the next year or two, has been pushed back to 2017. A long time to wait, for sure, but both institutions must be breathing a sigh of relief in knowing that, at least for now, the projects haven’t been abandoned.

What started as but a rumor back in 2008, and followed by the slow progression of hiring an architect and then hunting for donations, is finally all starting to come into factual fruition for London’s Design Museum. This week the organization unveiled a first look (pdf) at what will become their new home sometime in 2014. Build upon the former home of a government-funded research institute, the new space has been designed by John Pawson and is estimated to cost somewhere in the $100 million range to develop. The move is set to not only give them “three times more space” but also put the Design Museum closer to the city’s other cultural touchstones, like the V&A, the Royal College of Art and the Serpentine Gallery. In addition to this first batch of official details, the museum has also released this quick video tour of their soon-to-be new digs:

Well if this just isn’t the way of the world, particularly within the building industry, then we don’t know what is. After carefully maneuvering big hurdles like raising enough money, and much smaller ones, like cleaning up some graffiti, the long awaiting opening of the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University and its new home designed by Zaha Hadid, has been delayed due to a factor few would have likely considered: glass. The Lansing State Journal reports that because Hadid’s building features panels upon panels of glass that make up the structure’s exterior, the builders have found that some of the 1,000 pound pieces aren’t lining up just-so and will need to be sent back to the manufacturer. The original opening was scheduled for just a few months from now, on April 21st. That’s now been pushed back to “sometime in the fall,” which is the new estimate based on how quickly they can get the correct glass. Fortunately, the paper reports that the delay isn’t expected to add to the expense of the already pricey building. To help bridge the gap until its later opening, the museum plans to launch The Virtual Broad Art Museum sometime next month.

Get ready for MOCA TV! The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles has teamed with YouTube to create a new video channel for fresh contemporary art and culture programming. The online programming venture, part of YouTube’s new original programming push, is expected to debut in July with an identity designed by L.A.-based Studio Number One. “Contemporary art is the new international language, unifying leading creators across art, music, fashion, film, and design,” said MOCA director Jeffrey Deitch, who has always struck us as a natural VJ. “MOCA TV will be the ultimate digital extension of the museum, aggregating, curating, and generating the strongest artistic content from around the world for a new global audience of people who are engaged in visually oriented culture.” Slated for the MOCA TV line-up? Global art news briefs, programs focused on the latest collaborative projects (art and music, art and fashion), looks inside artists’ studios, the street art beat (natch), and an interactive education series called MOCA University. The musem has tapped social media company theAudience to help get the word out about MOCA TV as the launch approaches.

Prada has teamed with two of its favorite collaborators to present an ephemeral museum experience in Paris. Puckish Italian artist Francesco Vezzoli and AMO, the architectural think tank-cum-consulting arm of Rem Koolhaas‘s OMA, are the minds behind “24 h Museum,” which opens Tuesday, January 24—and closes 1,440 minutes later. The project will transiently commandeer the Palais d’Iéna. Designed by Auguste Perret between 1936 and 1946, it currently houses the French Conseil Économique, Social, et Environnemental. What Vezzoli and AMO have in store for the historic property remains anyone’s guess, but they’ve picked a fetching Pepto-Bismol pink for the identity of their pop-up “architectural intervention,” which now has official Facebook and Twitter accounts. According to Vezzoli, who has worked with everyone from Gore Vidal to Lady Gaga on a string of genre-straddling meta-spectacles, the art in 24 h Museum “will dangerously resemble advertising tools.” Meanwhile, AMO is fresh from another Prada project. The OMA offshoot designed the palatial-mod sets for the house’s fall 2012 menswear show, held Sunday in Milan. Audience members surrounded a grand expanse of carpeting, a woolly collage of red, white, and black piles dotted with geometric flower shapes. Above them hung a half dozen massive chandeliers, illuminated by 300 neon tubes.

It’s shaping up to be another eventful year for Tom Dixon and his addictive forms. On Friday, the self-taught designer-maker will debut his collection of everyday home accessories and design objects at Maison & Objet in Paris. “Eclectic by Tom Dixon” includes gift-ready goodies made of materials such as copper, marble, cast iron, and wood. But that’s nothing compared to what he’s got in store for Milan Design Week. Come April, Dixon and friends will transform the National Museum of Science and Technology Milan into MOST, a new cultural hub that will showcase the creations and wares of a handpicked group of designers, curators, and companies.

“In a fit of spontaneous madness we decided that the world’s most important meeting place for global design obsessives needed a new epicenter, a space for quiet contemplation or chaotic energy—a platform for the exchange of big ideas,” said Dixon in a statement announcing the project, which kicks off on April 17. “We have created a place where we can demonstrate the new democratization and hyperactive innovation of technology in art, food, fashion, manufacturing, and communication.” His creative partners on the project are Design Miami veteran Ambra Medda and Milan native Martina Mondadori, who is working with TAR Magazine to assemble a slate of lectures and seminars that will take place in the museum’s gorgeous auditorium (pictured). MOST will provide each exhibitor with an individual space within the approximately 400,000-square-foot museum, and there will be an overall exhibition theme. Exhibits of various sizes, positioned inside and outside of the museum, are expected to create a carnival-like environment. Interested in exhibiting? Contact Alice Foster (Alice.Foster@tomdixon.net) for more information and an application.