Shigeru Ban, whose prefab shed for Artek fetched just over $600,000 last month at Sotheby's, is heading west. The Aspen Art Museum (AAM) has chosen Shigeru Ban Architects (SBA) to design a new 30,000 square-foot facility for the museum, which has operated since 1979 out of a converted hydroelectric plant (pictured at left and topping out at 7,000 square feet) and is now in expansion mode. SBA was the unanimous choice of a selection committee chaired by Frances Dittmer, the secretary of AAM's Board of Trustees. "His designs show a profound sensitivity in creating spaces that resonate with both elegance and purpose in relationship to their environs and the environment itself," said Dittmer in a press release. "And his visionary choices of materials and their inspired uses infuse each project with a unique presence and balance in relation to their surroundings."

While details on the new facility's design have not been released, the plan calls for more than 13,000 square feet of curatorial and exhibition space, including multiple gallery spaces and a rooftop sculpture garden, a classroom, a museum shop, and a restaurant, as well as administrative and storage/preparation space. Focused on contemporary art, the AAM operates as a kunsthalle and therefore does not have a collection of its own. That hasn't stopped donors from committing $28 million and counting to the new building as part of the five-year expansion extravaganza, which is fully funded by museum donors. Aspen doesn't mess around—they have been known to commission high-profile artists to create work that is printed on lift tickets, which makes their $90-per-day price go down a little easier.

A couple of pieces of museum building news from Art Info we picked up on. First up comes locally, as the opening date has been set for Renzo Piano's addition to the Art Institute of Chicago, "The Modern Wing." The big day will be May 16th of next year, meaning we'll only have a few more months of hearing complaints from tourists wondering where all the famous paintings went (see: they removed a bunch of them during this construction). Here's a bit of that:

The modern European collection will showcase works by artists such as Picasso, Matisse, and Wassily Kandinsky. The contemporary art collection will include the work of Jackson Pollock, de Kooning, and Eva Hesse. The opening show for the special exhibition galleries in the new wing will be Cy Twombly's "The Natural World, Selected Works 2001-2007," on view from May 16 - September 13, 2009.

Second up comes news that the Tate Modern, after already collecting mondo bucks to add a new wing designed by the firm Herzog & de Meuron and making plans that they'd be ready to show off in time for the 2012 Olympics in that city, has announced that things aren't going so hot. They're now hunting for more money because the costs have risen, the structure plans will have to change a bunch to fit with the news of less money, and they probably won't get to open the wing until 2013 or 2014. So things are not so happy, we're figuring, around the Tate's head office right now.

Nothing is ever easy, is it? That must be the thought in your head if you're Gap founder Don Fisher and all you wanted to do was build a multi-million dollar private museum on National Park land, but now people are coming out of the woodwork to get the project stopped. What's more, because of the number of complaints and concerns raised at recent public meetings, The Presidio Trust association who will ultimately give the yea or nay on Fisher's plans, has extended the conversation out by 45 more days in the interest of giving everyone a fair shot at airing their grievances. So it looks like it's going to be another slew of wait-and-see months before Fisher can start opening up his wallet and hanging up his art. Here's a bit:

Five hundred people filled the Presidio Trust's meeting Monday night to capacity, while hundreds more stood outside waiting to tell the board what they thought of the museum plan put forward by Gap founder Don Fisher.

...Trust Chairman Dave Grubb was met with a round of applause when he announced the board would extend the public comment period by 45 days, to mid-September.

The delay effectively moves back the likely approval date for any project from before the end of the year to early next year, according to Lane Kasselman, spokesperson for Fisher's Contemporary Art Museum of the Presidio.

As followers of the official UnBeige Twitter feed learned only minutes after it was announced at a press briefing this morning, New York's New Museum is launching a major international triennial for emerging artists. Opening next spring, the triennial's first incarnation will be called "Younger Than Jesus," a title inspired by the many enduring changes in art and history wrought by young people. The exhibition will occupy the entire New Museum, the mesh-skinned stack of blocks on the Bowery designed by Tokyo-based architects Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa/SANAA.

"This will be the first recurring international exhibition in New York City devoted to emerging artists around the world," said New Museum director Lisa Phillips at today's press briefing. Focusing on artists who are under the age of 33, "Younger Than Jesus" will "analyze how generations emerge and produce work today," noted Massimiliano Gioni, director of special exhibitions at the museum and a member of the curatorial team for the triennial. And tracking down the featured artists is all part of the fun. Research for the exhibition will be aided by an international network of correspondents and "informers," while the curatorial process will be presented in an accompanying catalogue that Gioni described as a "Facebook of a whole new generation."

While we were all busy reporting on all the stories about Baghdad museums being looted and governments like the UK's organizing scouting missions to find where everything went, there have been hints, like this story in The Art Newspaper from back in January, that no such thing ever really occurred. Now via Cultural Property Observer, we learn from the BBC that US officials have finally fessed up, saying that while administrative offices in the National Museum of Baghdad were ransacked, very few of the items in the museum's collections were touched, let alone stolen, and that everything is pretty much a-okay. So, oops. We're really not to sure why exactly this was a story reported on by every major media outlet way back in 2003, unless, hmm, it was maybe used as a distraction and a way to vilify the native population? Or journalists just saw empty shelves and decided it had to mean looters? Either way, eggs on faces all around.

Staying with museums for a second, the Met has announced plans to put up an exhibit celebrating the career of their long-time-but-now-retiring director, Philippe de Montebello (whose leaving you might remember us reporting on here). The museum will pull out some of the many thousands of pieces he helped acquire and put them all together into an installation entitled "The Philippe de Montebello Years: Curators Celebrate Three Decades of Acquisitions" (with a title like that, no one is sure to be confused by what it's all about, will they?). Here's a bit:

The museum says 300 of the works - out of 84,000 that were added during de Montebello's tenure - will be featured in an exhibition organized in tribute to the retiring director.

Curators in the museum's 17 curatorial departments chose the works, focusing on those with the biggest impact on the Met's collections.

Elsewhere in news surrounding the Met, word has sneaked out that the now-director hunting museum approached the British Museum's head honcho, the famous Neil MacGregor, who thought the offer over but then turned it down, saying that he plans to stay where he's at for at least the next five years (a presumed big raise to keep him probably helped a little in the decision, too).

The Smithsonian has been working on The National Museum of African American History and Culture for years now, but only on a background level, trying to assemble exhibits, financing, and figuring out exactly what the thing will be when it opens some seven years from now. Though now it looks like they're kicking off the process to get a building in place, as they've just put out a call for architects to pitch ideas. Here's a bit:

Under government procedures, the museum issued a formal request for architects to submit initial ideas for the project by Sept. 19. Submissions will be narrowed down to between three and seven firms for a design competition.

The Smithsonian already has heard from hundreds of architectural, engineering and consulting firms interested in the project, said Sheryl Kolasinski, director of Smithsonian planning and project management.

Following up on our reporting from last week about the first photos released of the new Pentagram-designed Harley Davidson Museum in Milwaukee, the firm has launched a huge post about the planning and creation of the new building, which opens this very weekend. It tells the tale of Pentagram pals Abbott Miller and James Biber, along with Michael Zweck-Bronner, starting from the beginning, with early sketches and elements they used for inspiration, all the way through to the beautiful finished product. Along the way, they graciously posted a million photos of the new museum, all of which want to make us jump on our hogs and make the two hour drive up from Chicago to go check it out. Granted, we don't really have any hogs to ride, but we're sure Pentagram included some parking for station wagons somewhere on the property, too.

Sometimes even the most crystal clear of things can be deceiving, or so a number of museums are learning. It turns out that many of the spookily enchanting crystal skulls, which have been attracting even more interest than usual in the wake of the new Indiana Jones film, are fakes—crafted not by Mesoamerican craftsmen but by, say, a few guys in Mexico City who were handy with a drill, circa 1960. The electron microscopy-assisted findings, some of them reported in a recent paper in the Journal of Archaeological Sciences, puts such institutions as the Smithsonian, the British Museum, and the Quai Branly Museum in Paris in the position of so many crestfallen Antiques Roadshow comers. According to an Agence France Presse report:

Sleuths pored over the archives of both [the Smithsonian and the British Museum], the Museum of Mankind in Paris, the French National Library, the Hispanic Society of America, and newspaper records in a bid to find where the skulls came from. The only documentation existing for the Smithsonian skull indicates it had been purchased in Mexico City in 1960. The scientists believe the skull was "probably manufactured shortly before it was purchased" there.

Following up on a story from yesterday, apparently the people at Madame Tussauds in Berlin are eager to latch on and ride the press wave as long as they possibly can before people realize that they're spending a lot of time talking about a wax museum, they have decided to replace the head of Wax Hitler, who was decapitated this weekend not minutes after the museum's grand opening. This, of course, means that we will have to wait upwards of ten minutes after the new one is rolled out and someone attacks it again. Here's a bit:

"The figure will be repaired, so that it can be reintegrated into the display as quickly as possible," the museum said in a statement Monday, adding that it was still open despite the missing Hitler.

It is not clear how long it will take to repair the figure, Madame Tussauds spokesman Thomas Reinecke told The Associated Press. He refused to give any details about security improvements at the museum but said the issue was being discussed.