The push to add a National Portrait Gallery to the capital’s “constellation” of cultural institutions has reached its next stage with a feasibility report prepared by a citizen-led advisory board. The report includes the proposed gallery’s preliminary concept, with a more detailed operational and business plan to come once the first major hurdle is cleared: finding a site to house the precious portrait collection.

In 2018, the board joined forces with the venerable Royal Canadian Academy of Arts and the renowned Toronto-based museum-planning firm Lord Cultural Resources, which drafted the recent feasibility study.

In less than a year, Expo 2020 Dubai will open its doors to more than 25 million visitors from across the globe on 20 October, 2020, with 70% of the visitors expected to come from outside the UAE. The first World Expo to take place in the region, Expo 2020 Dubai, will be located on an area covering 4.38km2 near Al Maktoum International Airport in Dubai South.
Other companies including Moriyama & Teshima Architects, Lord Cultural Resources, Hatch, Kubik, Thornton Tomasetti, NGX, and Cisco are also working on the pavilion that will be located within the Sustainability District.

It’s fitting that America’s first true museum hotel is at one of America’s very best museums, and a longtime personal favorite of mine, the National World War II Museum in New Orleans. If you haven’t been, go, and if you have been, go back - this was my fourth visit, and every time there are new exhibits and in many cases, entire new wings or buildings. Last year TripAdvisor users named it the nation’s third best museum behind only New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, and at Number One, the 9/11 Museum (also an amazing can’t miss experience).

Lord Cultural Resources worked with National World War Ii Museum on Concept Plan, Multi-Media Exhibits, Functional Program, Architect and Exhibit Designer Selection, Strategic Planning.

Assiniboine Park Conservancy announced a generous gift of $1,000,000 from Bison Transport and the Jessiman Foundation to support Canada’s Diversity Gardens project! "I think this is a very rare opportunity to support a project that is going to impact generations of Winnipeggers, Manitobans, Canadians and visitors from all over the world," said Peter Jessiman, Co-Owner of Bison Transport, during a tour of The Leaf construction site. Watch the video to learn more and get a sneak peek at the future site of The Leaf.

A new display space in Vancouver’s Chinatown helps visitors learn about a forthcoming museum dedicated to Chinese Canadian history. The Museum of Vancouver and the University of British Columbia, with support from the City of Vancouver and the B.C. government, have teamed up to launch the curated pocket gallery at the Chinese Canadian Museum project office at the Chinese Cultural Centre of Greater Vancouver. 

Lord Cultural Resources is working with Chinese Canadian Museum on Feasibility Study and Business Plan.

Session kicks off development of new strategic plan at Farmington. Public attendees at a consultation for the Farmington Museum in New Mexico said they appreciate the museum, but also want to see it become more diverse and daring in its programming. The meeting was an early step in creating a new multi-year strategic plan for the museum. The City of Farmington is working with Lord Cultural Resources to develop the plan. Lord representatives Brad King (Vice President) and Sarah Hill (Senior Consultant) led the meeting, which was designed to solicit public input to inform a better understanding of how residents view the facility.

Contemporary Calgary has finished phase one of transforming the old planetarium into an art gallery, and has lined up a series of exhibitions for the New Year, including a feature on the art of Yoko Ono and John Lennon.

This year marks the arrival of a brilliant diamond, a hybrid space rocket, exciting paintings and two darling clouded leopard cubs. If the Smithsonian really is the Nation’s Attic, as it is sometimes called, it might require a new room or two up there. Another year of acquisitions for its 19 museums and galleries, along with the National Zoo, has added to its already massive collections.

The Art Gallery of Nova Scotia is looking for a $7-million contribution from the Halifax region for a new art gallery on the city's waterfront. Gallery officials recently presented a proposal to the municipality's community planning committee. "We're hoping HRM will come with a five per cent investment on the project," said Colin Stinson, the director of marketing for the art gallery.

The Amelia Island Chapter Daughters of the American Revolution honored the veterans associated with the chapter before choosing one of their own as its guest speaker for the November meeting. Administered and curated by The Women in Military Service for America Memorial Foundation, which oversees the only national site that recognizes women military veterans, as well as those who have served with service organizations such as the Red Cross, USO or Public Health Service. The goal of the memorial is to preserve the stories of America’s 2.5 million female veterans who have served this country from the Revolutionary War to today.

In detailed scenes sewn together with colorful patches of fabric, Chilean women have documented the darkest years of the country’s history. They tell stories of resistance against a brutal dictatorship, of families struggling after the disappearance of loved ones and of women working together to ensure meet the needs of their communities. Arte, Mujer y Memoria: Arpilleras from Chile, which opened at the Museum of Latin American Art in late November and runs through March 29, is a powerful visual history of the Pinochet regime as told by the women who witnessed it.

One man is making it his mission to photograph the buildings and landmarks seen on currency from around the world, which brought him to Winnipeg to see the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, which appears on our $10 bill. Emaad Paracha has been through four countries photographing sites on currency.

What can Canada learn from the museum building boom in China? It’s a question examined in the book Museum Development in China: Understanding the Building Boom, edited by Gail Dexter Lord, Guan Qiang, An Laishun, and Javier Jimenez. The anthology of essays reveals how much East and West can learn from each other about museum roles, our publics, how we preserve, what we conserve and our future sustainability—even as we marvel at the accomplishments of China's museum building boom.

On November 27, the University of Toronto’s School of Cities, in partnership with the Asian Institute at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, the Faculty of Information, and Lord Cultural Resources, hosted a book launch event and panel discussion at the George Ignatieff Theatre.

Check out this article on building livable communities through soft power by Gail Lord on page 26 at the current issue of Heritage Matters: Rethink. Revitalize.  

Research groups have designed new technologies and initiatives for the V&A, Kunsthistorisches Museum and Thyssen-Bornemisza.
Museums can be hostile places for disabled visitors, with buildings that are hard to navigate by wheelchair and exhibits that concede little to people with sensory or cognitive impairments. But a handful of European institutions have conducted access studies that promise to transform this dispiriting experience, drawing on expert advice from participants with diverse lived experiences of disability.

The SFMOMA show Soft Power, treats the idea of art as a crafty influencer. The term “soft power” first became popular during the Reagan era when it referred to suing cultural persuasion as an alternative to military force. Appropriation of the idiom by SFMOMA is clearly ironic, given the radical position expressed by most of the artwork. It also suggests that the term can be subversive, forcing a conceptual summersault that undoes some of the damage wrought by soft and hard power in the past.

A trip to the theater, museum or art gallery could help you live longer. And the more often you get that culture fix the better, a new study suggests.

If you seek out history, art, and eclectic adventures when you travel, you’ll have plenty of excuses to pull off the road in 2020. From a retrospective of outsider art to shrines devoted to everything from eyesight to motion pictures, here are museum exhibitions worth planning a trip around this coming year.

The Art Newspaper looks back at the major museum moments of 2019, from the MoMA expansion to ‘artwashing’ ill-gotten wealth.

The search for the next Art Fund Museum of the Year has begun. The winner of the UK’s largest art award will receive £100,000, while four finalists will be granted £10,000 each. Applications close on February 13, 2020. The shortlist will be announced in late April. Art Fund says the award “champions the work of all museums—shining the spotlight on the originality and creativity of all sizes from every part of the UK.” Museums must demonstrate that their current work stands out from previous years.

An installation created by internationally renowned Sami artist and architect Joar Nango, is a two-storey structure that invites visitors to observe its mixed-medium elements of wood and tanned animal skins, and also to pick up and leaf through a collection of books on activism, colonialism and Indigenous architecture, all from the artist’s personal collection.

Dezeen looks back at the top ten architectural trends of of 2019, including celebrity collaborations, mirrored buildings, and architects on strike.

Diamond Schmitt, would lead the transformation of its David Geffen Hall, the home of the New York Philharmonic symphony orchestra.

Canadian architects are winning more work beyond our borders and designing iconic work for the world’s pre-eminent institutions. KPMB Architects was selected by Boston University for their new Center for Computing and Data Sciences. In October, Hariri Pontarini Architects won the RAIC International Prize for their extraordinary Baha’i Temple of South America in Santiago, Chile.

Culturespaces founder Bruno Monnier began creating a new art space in Paris in 2014. After extensive and sympathetic renovations, a former foundry in Paris’ 11th arrondissement opened as the Atelier des Lumières (Studio of Lights) in April 2018. Since then it has hosted around 2.5 million visits.

Projected masterpieces from the likes of Leonardo da Vinci, Egon Schiele and Gustav Klimt surround visitors. Each programme is also accompanied by a soundtrack that makes the experience more reflective and immersive.

As artists experiment with the internet and digital media, museums of all kinds are aiming to crack the code of how to display such art online to a wide audience. Now the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art in Moscow is entering the field with an ambitious new effort.

From Artemisia to Abramović, Old Masters to Olmecs, and Richter to Roman antiquities—here are next year's must-see shows.

As we near the end of 2019, and the run of new exhibitions goes into hibernation until February, now seems an opportune moment to take a step back and look at some of the most important and interesting recent news from the art world.

In 11 years as executive director of the Kelly-Strayhorn Theater, Janera Solomon changed more than just the prominence of that East Liberty performing-arts venue. She profoundly altered the Pittsburgh arts scene. “Supporting emerging artists, new ideas, no matter where they come from, is a critical part of keeping a city, and keeping an arts community viable,” she said.

Janera has worked with Lord Cultural Resources on several projects.

The Art Newspaper looks a back at 2019 culture scene’s highs and lows.

The year in art was explosive, scene-changing and expanded far beyond the walls of galleries. Here’s a look at some things that mattered in 2019.

Earlier this fall, Whistler’s Audain Art Museum debuted an exhibition showcasing the body of work by the B.C.-born artist Emily Carr. Borrowed from public, private, and corporate collections, the pieces cover a three-year period (1910-1912) that marks an emphatic transition in Carr’s long career.

The Art Controversies That Defined the 2010s.

What makes a good food city? An abundance of good restaurants, of course, ideally offering ample choice for casual and formal occasions, and representing a wide range of cuisines. 24/7 Tempo referred to local, regional, and national online restaurant rankings, researched farmers markets and other food purveyors, and read menus and reviews to compile a list of 30 cities that should be much better known for their food scenes. Any of them would make a worthwhile destination for food-lovers who want to expand their experience of America's great culinary bounty.

On the occasion of an exhibition dedicated to the genius of Leonardo, Andrea Ravo Mattoni and Cyrille Gouyette talk about their project to bring street art to museums. In this interview with Andrea Ravo Mattoni , street artist, and Cyrille Gouyette , art historian who, a few days after the opening of the exhibition " Veni, Vidi, Vici - the art urbain face au génie ", from Fluctuart to Paris, talk about making new connections between museum spaces and streetscapes.