Museums and Libraries: The Latest Architecture and News

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has tapped British architect David Chipperfield to design its new Southwest Wing for modern and contemporary art. The commission, a result of an international competition, aims to increase gallery space, double the size of the museum’s popular roof garden, and establish accessible on-site storage. “The new design will also enhance gallery configuration and visitor navigation throughout the Southwest Wing, and support a more open dialogue between the Museum and Central Park,” says the architects.

Spanish studio Rafael de La-Hoz and Chinese design institute Architectural Design and Research Institute of Harbin Institute of Technology (ADRI-HIT) have been announced as the winners of a competition to construct a new cultural centre in Meishan, China. Located in Sichuan province in the nation's south, the complex will combine a sports centre with five museums, a library, and exhibition hall.

Occupying a sprawling 260,000-square-meters, the new complex is sited near the campus of the University of Meishan, and responds to the terraced topography of Sichuan's rice paddies. Learn more about the project and view selected images after the break.

Videos

“See the future, create the future,” this is the motto of Dubai’s newly unveiled “Museum of the Future.” The metallic oblong-structure, planned for a corner lot in Dubai’s central financial district next to the Emirates Towers on Sheikh Zayed Road, is said to become “an incubator for ideas and real designs, a driver for innovation and a global destination for inventors and entrepreneurs.”

"The world is entering a new era of accelerated knowledge and great technological revolutions,” tweeted United Arab Emirates prime minister Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum. "We aim to lead in that era, not to follow and lag behind. The Museum of the Future is the first step of many to come, marking the beginning of great achievements."

Holograms, robotics and 3-D printing will play a crucial role in the structure’s realization. Learn more and watch a video fly-through the building after the break.

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Edmund Sumner has shared with us images from his recent visit to Lyon, France, where he photographed Coop Himmelb(l)au’s newly completed Musée des Confluences. Perched on a century-old artificial peninsula at the confluence of the Rhône and Saône rivers, the “museum of knowledge,” as Coop Himmelb(l)au affectionately refers to it, is distinct for its “iconic gateway” - an openly traversable “Crystal” that provides multi-level access to the museum’s exhibition spaces and views of the building's unique context. Step inside, after the break.

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In celebration of the 100th Bauhaus anniversary, the Foundation Bauhaus Dessau has announced plans to construct a new Bauhaus Museum in Dessau. As part of a competition “preannouncement” published on the museum’s site, an open two-phased international competition will challenge architects to design a museum for the foundation’s “outstanding collection” under the “best possible conservation conditions.”

Co-promoter of the competition, the City of Dessau-Roßlau is currently searching for possible sites that will allow the Bauhaus Museum Dessau to be integrated into the city's central City Park. It is hoped that the museum and park will “strengthen and complement each other and enrich the location as a cultural centre.”

A breakdown of key competition dates, after the break. 

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A contemporary museum set within the oldest settlement in the Louisiana Purchase, Trahan Architects’ Louisiana State Sports Hall of Fame and Regional History Museum is distinguished for its sculpted interior and contrasting copper facade. Watch the short film above as Spirit of Space tours through the building, capturing the museum’s historic context and central pathway.

SO-IL, in collaboration with FREAKS freearchitects, has been selected as the first-prize winner of a competition to reinvent the historic Site Verrier in France. Located in the Northern Vosges Natural Park, the updated plan addresses three elements of the site's industrial past while providing a dynamic space for cultural interaction and historic exploration of Site Verrier's glass factory days.

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This sculptural memorial by SO/AP Architectes, located at the center of what was the Warsaw Ghetto, commemorates the history and memories of the Polish nation by uniting its oppressive and heroic pasts in one form. Simultaneously representing the Jewish and non-Jewish population, the serpentine structure symbolizes the entirety of the Polish people to strengthen their identity as one collective community.

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The Bengal Foundation has begun work on its Contemporary Arts and Crafts Museum, Bangladesh's first private museum of its kind. The ambitious complex will house multi-media works from the organization's founder Abul Khair's private collection, pieces by local artists, a sculpture garden, and a boat museum to celebrate the various cultural arts of local residents.

Learn more about the museum's design, after the break.

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RTA-Office has released its first-prize winning proposal for the Wuhu Urban Planning Exhibition, Office, and Archive. The design stems from the idea of an “urban cultural container,” holding both knowledge and space, and extracts its sculptural form from the surrounding mountainous landscape.

Pushing for the Exhibition Hall to be a recognizable landmark, the design is largely driven by its surrounding context. The building as a whole derives its shape from the rocky faces of the nearby Yashan Mountain, giving it a strong sense of place. Similarly, the structure is divided into three distinct sections all grounded by a central public space, each informed by the same rocky inspiration. The cracks in the rocks’ surfaces are mirrored in the irregular entrances and windows carved into the building’s volumes.

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Herzog & de Meuron have unveiled the design for their Slow Food Pavilion, due for completion by the 2015 Milan Expo in May. Showcasing the work of Carlo Petrini's Slow Food organization, the pavilion promotes the global organization's vision of universal access to "good, clean and fair food."

Sited on a triangular piece of land in the Eastern end of the Expo's central boulevard, the pavilion uses a a triangular configuration of tables to evoke what Herzog & de Meuron describe as "an atmosphere of refectory and market."

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