FutureSSM is compiling a list of arts, culture and heritage assets in Sault Ste. Marie. The goal is to provide a comprehensive and accessible record of the people, organizations, places and events that provide the cultural life and heritage of Sault Ste. Marie. Lord Cultural Resources is currently working with FutureSSM to develop the City of Sault Ste. Marie’s Community Cultural Plan.

The Art Gallery of Nova Scotia (AGNS) in Halifax, the province’s capital, is planning to build a new 142,000-square-foot facility on the city’s waterfront. The museum will be twice the size of its current home on Hollis Street, where the institution has been located since 1988.

Le projet de musée d'art contemporain dans le Grand Moncton est loin d'être mort. Une étude de faisabilité menée par la firme internationale Lord Cultural Resources, assortie d'une série de consultations, est en cours.

Lord Cultural Resources was at The Canadian Museums Association (CMA) National Conference 2019, making a mural in real time based on what people think the future of museums will/could look like. Thank you to everyone who contributed to create this great mural! We are excited to see what the future will bring for museums.

Last June, the province announced that Halifax's Architecture49 had been given a $250,000 contract to prepare a facility plan for a "cultural hub" on the waterfront that would include the art gallery as well as NSCAD University, the provincial art and design school. "It is an opportunity to transform a parking lot on the waterfront of Halifax into a dynamic destination for creative innovation and contribute to the profound transformational changes remaking the city," the study, by Lord Cultural Resources, said.

ANN ARBOR, Mich. (AP) — The University of Michigan Museum of Natural History is reopening to the public in its new building. The Ann Arbor school says new exhibits will be on display to the public starting Sunday at the museum, which combines natural history with scientific research.
The museum, which is part of the university's College of Literature, Science, and the Arts, closed in December 2017. It moved from its previous home in the Ruthven Building to its current location in the new $261 million Biological Sciences Building.

Parmi les 83 finalistes sélectionnés aux 10es prix Numix, ce sont Dpt. URBANIA, Productions Version 10, lg2, Télé-Québec, Radio-Canada et l'ONF qui dominent le palmarès. Le Musée Perlan est parmi les finalistes dans la catégorie de Production culturelle – production muséale.

“By making science more accessible, we are encouraging visitors, young students in particular, to explore science in a new way,” said Jarrett Pelletier, AIA, project designer at Ennead Architects. “We’re excited to think that this kind of interaction and outreach can have tremendous ability to inspire next-generation scientists,” adds Mark Potter, AIA, project manager for SmithGroup.
The Detroit office of SmithGroup (Architect of Record) and New York, New York-based Ennead Architects (Design Architect) worked in partnership to bring the project to fruition. Southfield-based Barton Malow served as the contractor. Museum exhibits were designed by Great Plains Exhibit Development Joint Venture led by Lord Cultural Resources, Xibitz and Taylor Studios.

Located in Edmonton's Churchill Square, the Art Gallery of Alberta is too distinctive to miss — but if you seriously don't know the asphalt from your elbow, Marigold Santos always offers the same directions to visitors: "Just look for the beautiful building with the big, metal noodles."

The Canadian Museum for Human Rights has topped a field of renowned museums to win a global award for digital storytelling. CMHR’s exhibit Mandela: Struggle for Freedom was honoured Friday at the annual GLAMi Awards in Boston. The GLAMis recognize innovation in storytelling among museums and galleries worldwide. Institutions submit their own work and are judged by a panel of 38 experts.

If you visit the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, you can gaze at many treasures, works painted by the likes of Rembrandt, Monet and Dégas. Or you can try making your own masterpiece in a studio equipped with free art supplies where nobody is going to tell you that you aren’t the next Picasso. Welcome to Nathalie Bondil’s museum. As public art galleries struggle to attract new visitors to institutions sometimes perceived as remote or elitist, Bondil is the dynamic French immigrant who has overseen a popular revolution at the MMFA. In the space of a decade as the museum’s director, she has thrown its doors open to the community, doubled its floor space and tripled its attendance.“It’s remarkable,” museum consultant Gail Lord said. “Montreal is not the largest city in Canada and it’s not a particularly museum-going city; it’s a festival city. She’s doing a brilliant job; she’s one of the leading art gallery directors in the world.”

These structures are just as intriguing as the collections they house.There's an old adage that states it's only what's inside that matters, but the saying doesn't quite apply to museum buildings—or at least it shouldn't. Any good museum worth its salt knows that if it intends to captivate and enchant its visitors with its collections and exhibitions, the inspiration should spark long before they walk through the front doors. The buildings on this list blur the line between art and architecture; they're structures that look unlike anything to have come before.

Check out our work with museums mentioned in the article:
Functional Review, Lobby Review for Denver Art Museum
Marketing and Visitor Experience Planning for Royal Ontario Museum
Collections Review, Facility Strategy, Concept and Space Plan for Museum of Islamic Art
Business Plan for Vancouver Art Gallery
Exhibition Development for ArtsSciences Museum
Strategic Plan for Museo Guggenheim Bilbao
Master Plan for Art Gallery of Alberta

“It’s about bringing neon back to the public eye,” Mr. Simo explains. “I’ve had so many people come through [Neon Demon Studio] asking for public tours, but it’s not really the right space for that, but there is a high demand for it.”
“So really what this is, is forcing the issue,” Mr. Garner says. “It really is saying, ‘We’ve identified the laneways, everybody has blessed the laneways we want to use, now I need to go convince the next layer of bureaucracy.'”
Lord Cultural Resources developed a concept and a high level operations and business plan for the Museum.

Gail Lord, President and Co-Founder of Lord Cultural Resources is in Russia this month teaching a course on "Cultural Leadership" for 30 Russian museum professionals from the Moscow region. The series of workshops and lectures are sponsored by the Potanin and Pro Arte Foundations.

Gail Lord spoke at the The PRO ARTE Foundation and Vladimir Potanin Foundation in Russia, tune in to hear her talk. Traditionally Cultural Diplomacy has been the realm of national governments and professional diplomats aided by the highest quality arts organizations, usually national in nature. Rapid urbanization and the increasing economic importance of cities in the 21st century has stimulated cities to have a more active role in connecting culturally with cities in other countries – to promote trade and investment, to attract talent to their universities, to collaborate on urban issues such as transportation, housing and the environment and to boost international tourism, which has become an important industry registering a higher growth rate than the global economy. Cities are hubs of creativity and culture. Advances in digital technology make it more possible than ever for city to city cultural engagement. Because city cultural diplomacy is still an emerging idea, this presentation will both report on current initiatives and propose some new ones.

Cities are hubs of cultural activity, encompassing all art forms, education, heritage and preservation. Many citizens and their children experience culture as leisure, some as vocation, others as inspiration, and perhaps many more as an unknowable world. City Cultural Planning is a process whereby city government assesses the needs and aspirations of people, analyzes how these needs are being met and the impacts on participation, creativity and health. The overarching goal of is to construct a practical plan for how resources can be allocated to create a cultural ecosystem that provides meaningful cultural access to all. A cultural plan pays attention to the financial costs and economic benefits of cultural infrastructure and related sectors including training and tourism. This presentation will focus on five key steps in creating a city cultural plan.

When Felwine Sarr and Bénédicte Savoy delivered their report last November, its uncompromising recommendations caught many European museum leaders off-guard. Commissioned following President Macron’s clarion 2017 declaration in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, the authors advocate for full restitution and transfer of legal title of objects from sub-Saharan Africa held in French public museums, if requested and if secured in questionable circumstances. Much of the material, they argue, is of enduring significance to the communities from which they were wrested, often in brutal circumstances, leaving their creators’ descendants bereft of critical connections to the past.

Hundreds of influential faces in global politics, art, fashion and design descended on this tiny desert kingdom last week. DOHA, Qatar — Victoria Beckham came from London. Diane von Furstenberg and Alexander Wang from New York. Pierpaolo Piccioli of Valentino flew in from Rome, while Olivier Rousteing of Balmain and Giambattista Valli came from Paris. So did Carla Bruni, with her husband, former President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, firmly in tow.

The new Museum of Italian Judaism and the Shoah in Ferrara explores the long and complex relationship between Christianity and Judaism. The epigraph etched in Latin on the ancient stone tablet was short and tender: “Claudia Aster, prisoner from Jerusalem.” Brought to Rome in chains after the quelling of the revolt in Jerusalem in 70 A.D., she was apparently the concubine of a Roman notable who wanted to give her a dignified burial and added an unusual element to the funerary stone. “I pray," it said, “take care and follow the law that no one should remove the inscription.”

The Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, an outpost of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation first announced in 2006, expects to open around 2022, Richard Armstrong, the director of the foundation and the Guggenheim Museum in New York, has told Euronews in an interview.

The Canadian Museums Association (CMA) announced on Tuesday, April 16, that it has received over $1 million in government funding for projects advancing reconciliation and collaboration with indigenous groups.

As Canadian museums grapple with how to make space for Indigenous voices and perspectives, a new initiative is aiming to give them a boost. Canadian Heritage announced more than $680,000 in funding on Tuesday for the Canadian Museums Association to undertake a national review of museum policies — in collaboration with Indigenous communities — to ensure they line up with the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous People (UNDRIP) and to make recommendations for best practices going forward. The goal is to develop a toolkit and identify ways of collaborating with Indigenous communities.

What museums can do is bring people into contact, face to face, with the material culture of history and to bear witness to the values that bind us together as a nation — even if we disagree,” says Perelman.

If mysterious animals, toilet seats and giant breasts are more your thing, then check out these 11 strange museums from around the world. You will never look at learning the same way again!

A crop of new institutions—in Berlin, L.A., and Charleston, South Carolina—seeks to create an immersive experience while reacquainting us with the past. Many of us have had the experience of visiting an exhibition and being unmoved by static displays and relics, but a crop of new museums is making a point of bringing visitors into a far more immersive space while reacquainting them with history. The design approach is strikingly multidisciplinary. Architects play a crucial role, but so do landscape architects, archivists, and even movie production designers—as exemplified by new museums coming soon to Berlin, Los Angeles, and Charleston, South Carolina.

Reconstruction of the majestic, centuries-old Gothic landmark is sparking debate over whether it should involve new technologies and designs. French President Emmanuel Macron, for example, wants a “contemporary architectural gesture to be considered” for the collapsed 19th-century spire, which wasn’t part of the original cathedral. And he wants it completed in five years.

Jewel Changi Airport includes the world's largest waterfall, a five-story garden, and 280 retail stores and eateries—adding much to the "world's best" airport.
Singapore's Changi Airport is known globally for its visitor experience. In addition to the typical shopping and dining amenities, its terminals are packed with attractions. Terminal 1 boasts a cactus garden, a water lily garden, and a discovery garden, while Terminal 2 plays host to an LED-enhanced "enchanted garden," a 700-flower orchid garden, and a cheery sunflower-packed rooftop. In Terminal 3, one thousand butterflies live in a tropical habitat—the world's first butterfly garden in an airport—and visitors can take a ride down the world's tallest slide in an airport. Singaporean history is the focus of Terminal 4, where exhibits, galleries, and architecture reflect the Peranakan culture. Not to mention the entire airport is activated with public art. It's all part of what makes the airport the "world's best," according to the 2019 Skytrax World Airport Awards. (Changi has now won the accolade nine years in a row.)

How does one collect virtual reality? The question can start to sound like a koan—or perhaps the title of an unpublished Philip K. Dick novella. Yet as the possibilities of virtual reality develop, and VR artwork along with them, the art world is forced to wrestle with how to sell and care for such unique creations. While a group of tech-savvy artists, including Rachel Rossin and Jeremy Couillard, is deeply wedded to this type of media, production companies have also sprung up to collaborate with well-known artists—from Marina Abramović to Anish Kapoor—who are often VR novices.

Earlier this year, dozens of New York City art galleries were hit with lawsuits filed separately by two legally blind plaintiffs. Their common charge: The websites of galleries including Sperone Westwater, Gagosian, and David Zwirner were not readable by people with vision loss, an alleged violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

Although parts of Paris' Notre Dame Cathedral now lie in ruins, people can still experience what most of its nooks and crannies looked like in remarkable detail -- thanks to an American art historian.

François Pinault, one of France’s richest men, is investing nearly $170 million in the Bourse de Commerce. Works from his own collection are set to go on display starting in 2020.
PARIS — Early next year, after a nearly $170 million redevelopment, Paris’s 130-year-old Bourse de Commerce will reopen as a contemporary art museum. Unlike the world-famous state-funded museums nearby against which it hopes to measure up — namely, the Louvre and the Pompidou Center — this one will be financed by one man: the French billionaire François Pinault, whose collection consists of about 5,000 works by artists such as Jeff Koons, Cy Twombly, and Cindy Sherman.

The Redpath Museum is the oldest purpose-built museum in the country — a slightly imposing landmark on the northwest corner of the McGill campus, what with its Greek Revival columns (and the threat of dinosaurs lurking inside). First opened 1882, the place is an antique in itself, which might account for why just about every artist featured in this series so far asked if they could talk about it.

The 33 cultural institutions on city-owned property are tasked with cutting emissions in half by 2030.
New York City Council has voted to pass the Climate Mobilization Act, a landmark piece of legislation described as the city’s own version of the Green New Deal, that aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from large and mid-sized buildings. Among them? Cultural institutions like the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the New Museum, and even the planned headquarters of Pace Gallery.

In a controversial case in which an auction house protested rules that blocked it from exporting a French painting, the court decided it was reasonable for experts to stop the work leaving Canada. Tuesday’s decision in Heffel Gallery Ltd. v. Attorney-General of Canada seems to re-establish a system used to evaluate art for both export permits and tax credits for donations, which had been overthrown by the Federal Court in a June, 2018, ruling

For 62 years, World Press Photo’s independent jury has recognized the photojournalists who best capture critical events around the globe. The most famous award, Photo of the Year, is annually given to the photographer who most powerfully summed up a significant event in a single image. Last year, Ronaldo Schemidt was recognized for his photograph of a Venezuelan protester set aflame; the year prior, Burhan Ozbilici won for his frame of the assassination of Russian ambassador Andrey Karlov in an art gallery.

Research suggests that loneliness is an increasing social problem, and one with serious health consequences. To combat this trend, some museums are running programs that encourage people, especially those in at-risk populations, to make and sustain human connections.

Whether celebrating the roots of reggae or tracing music all the way back to the Hindu god Shiva, some of these cities might be worth a visit if you're looking to immerse yourself in musical culture. These cities are all celebrating their musical heritage and embracing their unique history of music and contribution to the art. They are part of UNESCO's Creative Cities of Music network, and they joined as a way to exchange ideas and promote creativity and history of music.

When you think of cultural cities, the likes of Rome, Paris and New York probably spring to mind first. And it’s true – these are among the world’s top cultural destinations according to a new ranking.