THE BRONX, USA – The Bronx Museum of the Arts, whose attendance has quadrupled since it instituted free admission in 2012, announced Wednesday that it had started a $25 million capital campaign to renovate and expand its building along the Grand Concourse and to establish an endowment for the first time. The building project, which has already received around $7 million from the mayor’s office, the New York City Council and the Bronx borough president’s office, will be overseen by the architect Monica Ponce de Leon, dean of the School of Architecture at Princeton University and a co-curator of the United States pavilion for the 15th Venice Biennale of Architecture, which opens to the public on Saturday.

TORONTO, CANADA – Being a classical arts presenter has never been for the faint of heart, no matter how much you may think it an elite, discreet profession full of high teas and quiet conversation. The arts world sits firmly within the entertainment business on this continent, and a classical music impresario is as worried about budgets, marketing, bums in seats, social media, trends and fashion as your average pop promoter. Maybe, because of the misunderstood nature of the product, even more so. And if that’s always been the case for the high arts in North America, it’s even more difficult these days as all the old preconceptions – of what the content is, who it’s for, how to reach a potential audience, find new performers – are being destroyed by the new means of communication that day by day, click by click, are transforming our world. Enter Mervon Mehta, the programming guru behind the Royal Conservatory of Music’s ambitious contemporary music festival, 21C, which opens tonight in Koerner Hall, a five-day sampling of high eclecticism and creativity that fits no one’s traditional definition of a “new music” festival. Thank goodness.

OSSINING, N.Y. – The Ossining Public Library will host a community workshop discussion about the proposed Sing Sing Prison Museum on Tuesday, May 31. Staff from Lord Cultural Resources, the consulting team hired to draft detailed development plans for the museum, will lead the workshop. The team will present the ideas currently being formulated and offer a chance for residents to engage in the process of planning the museum.

USA – In the midst of the teeming bustle of a city, there is nothing better than time spent in a city-park oasis, getting away from it all in a cool green expanse. But these days, there's a whole lot more to America's great city parks than a swing set and an open field -- if it doesn’t have a botanical garden, a zoo with exotic animals, or a natural wonder of some sort, well, no one is complaining, but it can't count itself among America's very best city parks. Lucky for you, we've looked all over the country and ranked the 15 coolest spots to kick back and relax, catch a great concert, and hike or bike the best trails. Because there's more than Central Park in this world -- so much more.

WASHINGTON, DC, USA – A dream for 100 years, the National Museum of African American History and Culture promises to become an instant favorite when it opens Sept. 24, its soaring spaces and magical views of the Mall a fitting setting for its tale of African American history and achievement. Museum officials on Tuesday offered a sneak peek at the 400,000-square-foot museum, the 19th of the Smithsonian Institution, that’s next to the Washington Monument. President Obama is expected to cut the ribbon on the dramatic space, which features layers of galleries focused on slavery, segregation and the civil rights movement as well as music, entertainment, sports and politics. Dozens of hard-hatted workers crammed the fourth-floor cultural galleries, where circular exhibition cases are being filled with objects related to food, education and sports. “End of Phase One today; that’s like Mile 22 on our marathon,” said Collections Manager Gina Whiteman, adding that there are 12 phases in the installation plan. “This is a long time coming. It’s exciting to see it go from paper to 3-D.”

WINNIPEG, CANADA – A new exhibit at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights (CMHR) looks at the perilous journeys taken by refugees who flee war and and persecution by sea. A Perilous Crossing opens to the media on Thursday at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights. The exhibit was developed by the Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21 in Halifax with the Canada Science and Technology Museum in Ottawa and with the co-operation of Doctors Without Borders, said a CMHR release.

BROOKLYN, USA – At the recently revived Brooklyn Museum, new leadership is demonstrating that one can take an aging institution and reinvent its identity into a dynamic, cutting edge powerful place of inspiration. Leading the way in this movement is the museum’s new director Anne Pasternak. I was first introduced to her visionary work through launching public art for social change as artistic director of Creative Time and through our collaborative effort to bring that message abroad to Stockholm and the Venice Biennale. Anne’s work at the museum is adding tremendous vibrancy to the already chic and hip upscale neighborhoods of Brooklyn.

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Nestled into the Dois Irmãos mountains near the top of Rio de Janeiro’s Vidigal favela—one of the city’s hillside shantytowns—are two terra-cotta-brick buildings that at first glance seem to have much in common with the ramshackle structures nearby. On closer inspection, they differ quite dramatically from their surroundings, with floor-to-ceiling windows, terraces, a linking bridge and a rainwater-recycling system, providing a sharp contrast to the open sewers that plague the neighborhood. The walls are brightened with graffiti by local artists, and a frieze of black-and-white photos of children’s faces, by French street artist JR, offers a clue to the activities inside. This compact compound, overlooking the beaches of Ipanema and Leblon, is the home of Escola Vidigal, an experimental school founded last year by Brazilian artist Vik Muniz. Because its buildings have been so deftly constructed to both stand out from and mesh with their environment, the project has been chosen for inclusion in the Brazilian pavilion at this year’s Venice Architecture Biennale, running May 28 through November 27. Scheduled to open in October, Escola Vidigal aims to teach what Muniz calls “visual literacy” to local children, ages 4 to 8, who will be offered free preschool and after-school classes in art, design and technology. Armed with creative know-how, “they won’t just be observers, they’ll be participants,” Muniz says. “And I think that alone will set them on a different mode of interaction with the world.”

BERLIN, GERMANY – Mohamed Al-Subeeh was a senior restorer at Syria's best-known mosaic museum, but as war swept deeper into his province, destroying artefacts and threatening his and his family's lives, he was forced to flee. The 64-year-old from Idlib province never dreamt that he would ever work in a museum again, certainly not in Germany, to which he had fled in a 23-day journey that involved a rubber boat ride across the Mediterranean, endless bus and train rides and hours of trekking on foot. But when he heard about a project at some of Berlin's top museums that trains newcomers to become Arabic-language guides for fellow refugees, he leapt at the opportunity.

SAN FRANCISCO, USA – The newly renovated San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMoMA) could be a potential shot in the arm for the Bay Area art market. In March, Pace Gallery opened a new permanent space in Palo Alto and the Gagosian Gallery announced plans to open a new space this month right across the street from SFMoMA. However, the long-time local dealer John Berggruen, who is moving next door to Gagosian’s space, is quick to downplay the idea that the market there is booming. “There are some great top-tier, second-tier and third-tier collections here, but many of those people are getting to be a little older, and some of them are getting to be very dead,” he says. Pace Gallery’s Marc Glimcher agrees, although he adds that speculation regarding Silicon Valley’s tech boomers beginning to collect art could be well founded. “People who move our society in a direction tend to end up being the people who are the most important supporters of the arts,” he says, “that’s always been true.”

UK – The museum sector is enlivening political debate in the run-up to elections in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland on 5 May. Politicians from all parties are being pressed on tough questions relating to public funding and on the execution of overarching strategies for arts and culture. The importance of museums is also being emphasised in discussions about how arts and culture can help governments meet targets in several key policy areas, including health and wellbeing, education and social inclusion. As Museums Journal went to press, Wales and Scotland had held culture-specific hustings, while a more general event had taken place in Northern Ireland.

TORONTO, CANADA – Josh Basseches, 54, is settling into his new job as the director and chief executive officer of the Royal Ontario Museum by visiting two of the 33 galleries every week. It’s the best way to get to know the collection of more than 6 million objects. Born and raised in Washington, D.C.  Basseches, 54, came to the ROM in March from the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts, where he was deputy director. In that role, he helped modernize the museum and raise $600 million in a recent capital campaign. Prior to that, he served as executive director of the Harvard Museum of Natural History. He holds an MBA from Harvard Business School, an MA from Boston University, a BA from Amherst College and is completing a doctorate in art history at Boston University.

INTERNATIONAL – The director of the Louvre, Jean-Luc Martinez, is forging closer links with cultural organisations in Egypt after signing a co-operation agreement last week (15 May) with Khaled El-Enany, the Egyptian minister of antiquities. The French museum is due to enter into a partnership with the Museum of Islamic Art in Cairo, which remains closed after a suicide car bomb badly damaged the 19th-century building in early 2014. A ministry spokesman says that a date for the re-opening is yet to be confirmed. Under the agreement, both museums will mount joint exhibitions, share expertise on conservation developments and oversee a staff training programme. For instance, three curators from the Cairo museum will spend six weeks at the Louvre from mid May, working with Islamic department curators in areas such as archiving and collection care.

INTERNATIONAL – While galleries and auction houses have always trafficked in the latest art, large public museums have typically held back. That trend is changing as more large museums purchase and display contemporary art. But is this a reaction to a bubbling art market, a chance to educate the masses about billionaire-level aesthetic views, or a risky gamble on fickle tastes?

SAN FRANCISCO, USA – The big white crinkly addition that the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art opened on Saturday bumps this widely respected institution into a new league, possibly one of its own. Designed by the Norwegian firm Snohetta, led by Craig Dykers, the new $305 million 10-story addition to the five-story Mario Botta building is a beautiful thing that promises to work as well. It nearly triples the gallery space while raising museum standards for synergy between interior and exterior; between art viewing and viewer comfort; and between galleries and circulation. The new building’s rippling, sloping facade, rife with subtle curves and bulges, establishes a brilliant alternative to the straight-edged boxes of traditional modernism and the rebellion against them initiated by Frank Gehry, with his computer-inspired acrobatics. Mainly, it reminds us that the horizontal and vertical grids of the city can be disrupted without being destroyed.

AMSTERDAM, THE NETHERLANDS – The Van Gogh Museum here has started a program to offer its professional services to private collectors, corporations and other institutions. It says the move could create a new revenue stream as a hedge against declining government financing and global events like terror attacks that could have an effect on visitor numbers. Museums around the world have long sought creative ways to bring in money outside of ticket sales, but the Van Gogh’s program, announced last month, is unusual in that its target group includes private clients, experts in museum finance and administration said. Under the program, museum employees will provide advice and support in areas such as collection conservation and preservation, installation of climate control systems, museum management, and the development of educational programs.

BUDAPEST, HUNGARY – Hungarian firm Napur Architect has been selected ahead of BIG, OMA and Zaha Hadid Architects to design a major new museum in Budapest's City Park. Budapest-based Napur Architect was selected ahead of 14 other firms for the Museum of Ethnography, which will be built alongside a concert hall by Sou Fujimoto and a national art gallery by SANAA as part of a huge new museum complex. Described by architects István Ferencz, Marcel Ferencz and György Détári as a "21st-century Baroque frame", the design resembles a giant skateboard ramp, with patterned walls and a grass-covered roof. Called The Gate of the City Park, it will contain several floors of exhibition galleries at both ends and an expansive open space at the centre, while its roof is intended as a new public gathering space. It was also frame an existing monument to the Hungarian Revolution of 1956.

VENICE, ITALY – Venice Architecture Biennale 2016: a retrospective of work by the late Zaha Hadid will take place during this year's Venice Biennale, including early paintings, models and photos of past and future projects. The show will pay tribute to the Iraqi-born British architect, who passed away earlier this year, showcasing completed and under-construction building from throughout her 40-year career, as well as unrealised projects like the Cardiff Bay Opera House (1994-95). The retrospective will be hosted by the glassmaking organisation Fondazione Berengo at the 16th-century Palazzo Franchetti on the Grand Canal and will coincide with the opening of the Venice Architecture Biennale in May 2016.

NEW YORK, USA – Fourteen years from now, New York's skyline will be one vastly different than the recognizable profile visible today. With dozens of new projects set to make their mark on the city, the creative design company Visualhouse - specializing in 3D visualizations -  has released a rendering of New York in 2030. “This image shows the who’s who of modern architecture - with buildings designed by Jean Nouvel, Rafael Vinoly, Bjarke Ingels Group, SOM, Foster + Partners, and Kohn Pedersen Fox, just to name a few," said Visualhouse CEO and Founder, Rob Herrick. "How these modern day masterpieces all fit together in the sky space, that will be the legacy for New Yorkers in 2030 and beyond."

INTERNATIONAL – The 19 shortlisted projects for the 2016 aga khan award for architecture have been announced. the schemes were selected by the master jury from a total of 348 nominated for the 13th cycle of the award. the aga khan award for architecture was established by the aga khan in 1977 to recognize examples of architectural excellence in the fields of contemporary design, social housing, community improvement and development, historic preservation, reuse and area conservation, as well as landscape design and improvement of the environment. the 19 projects are now undergoing rigorous investigations by on-site reviewers — architects, conservation specialists or structural engineers themselves — who visit and evaluate each project first-hand.

BROOKLYN, USA – Brooklyn has seen a sharp jump in the number of architecture and design jobs, according to new figures that show creative employment has almost doubled in the borough over four years. A report by the Center for an Urban Future revealed that the number of jobs at architecture and design firms had grown by 86 per cent in Brooklyn between 2010 and 2014. Published to coincide with the city's annual NYCxDesign festival this month, the figures show that New York City accumulated 5,000 jobs in the industries during this time period – a 23 per cent increase. The survey covers architecture, landscape architecture, interior design, industrial design, graphic design, and other specialised design including fashion, costume and jewellery.

INTERNATIONAL – If you’ve been following the Google Art Project at all, you know the company has been scanning pictures in museums to make it easier for a broader public to have access to the works. This project is much like Google’s long-delayed plan to scan books from the world’s major libraries so all of the world’s knowledge is accessible. Now Google announces they’ve built a new camera that gets the scanning done much faster, according to TechCruch. (Click on the image above or here to see a video explaining the camera.) Google has already shared around 200 gigapixel images online during the Google Cultural Institute’s first five years, but the process before was slower, and involved highly specialized and expensive equipment, as well as highly trained individuals capable of doing the job. Now it has a smart robotic camera that can do the job instead, and much more quickly. Instead of a day, it could take just 30 minutes to scan a painting.

PARIS, FRANCE – Maybe you've heard the term "influencer." It's the moniker marketers have given to the heavy hitters of social media with considerable follower counts (often in the tens or hundreds of thousands). You know, the Kendall and Gigis currently dominating our world. Well, Paris Musées, the public institution that oversees 14 of the city's municipal museums, has cottoned on to this new media wave and is turning to Instagram as a platform to raise awareness and boost museum attendance. To promote its recently launched site, which houses a searchable digital collection of all the museums' works, Paris Musées has commissioned 10 Instagrammers from various art backgrounds to re-create or reinterpret some of these iconic works.

LONDON, UK – The Science Museum in London is on a mission to rebuild the UK's first humanoid robot. "Eric" was invented by William Richards and Albert Herbert Reffell, two veterans of the First World War, in 1928. He was a large, burly machine covered in aluminium, and was able to stand up, move his arms and change the position of his head. Eric's movements could be controlled remotely over a wireless connection, or directly using voice commands, much to the amusement of the public. He was built initially to open an Exhibition of the Society of Model Engineers in London, but later travelled the world, meeting politicians and celebrities.

INTERNATIONAL – Most recently, the company launched Tilt Brush - a new app designed to enable artists to paint 3D brush strokes, paint in room-scale VR and share their creations in different formats. The app is already deemed revolutionary by many tech enthusiasts and is likely to mark a new era in the world of digital art. CNN reports that “Tilt Brush has the potential to drive change in the fashion industry, as illustrators can paint with textured fabrics such as denim, silk and cotton, as well as leather.” The article also includes a number of quotes from prestigious artists who apparently see great value in this Google’s new project.

SAN FRANCISCO, USA – MOST APP-BASED MUSEUM tours work like this: Stop at an artwork, tap in a number, wait for the commentary. But SFMOMA’s app was designed to keep your phone in your pocket and your eyes on the art. Codeveloped with a company called Detour, it uses your phone’s location-sensing tech to precisely triangulate your position in the museum based on a hi-res virtual map created for the museum by Apple. That way it knows exactly where you are and where you’re going—and adjusts its audio accordingly. SFMOMA’s chief content officer, Chad Coerver, calls the app “a cross between This American Life and the movie Her.” And indeed it cops to its slightly eerie capabilities at the outset. When you fire up the app, the voice of public radio veteran Marianne McCune greets you: “The guides will tell you where to go. They’ll wait for you, because they know where you are too. [awkward pause] Oh, that sounds creepy—it’s not.”

LONDON, UK – Walking through a museum is a wonderful way to learn about history, but you can only glean so much by looking at a random object, or reading a tiny description of it. Using animated holograms, a company called ColliderCase wants to help bring museum exhibits to life. For example, if you’re not an experienced navigator, it’s hard to understand how exactly a sextant works. And given the frailty of some artifacts, they can’t be physically demonstrated by museum staffers. But through the use of holograms projected onto crystal clear glass display cases, animations, simulations, and demonstrations could help illustrate why an exhibit was so important or how it was used.

CANADA – Museums are usually considered purveyors of the past, but in Alex Benay’s eyes, they might be better off as tech pioneers. “I’m not a traditionalist,” said Benay, president and CEO of the Canada Science and Technology Museums Corporation. “The concept here is using things like virtual reality, open data, anything that gets the story out … whether it’s raw or filtered, [it] means engagement.” The first test of Benay’s approach is a virtual-reality (VR) simulation of the 1936 CN 6400 steam locomotive. Acquired by the Canada Science and Technology Museum in 1967, the train is a popular attraction at the museum. Visitors to the museum, currently closed for renovations, will step into a six-foot-long by six-foot-high box, throw on an Oculus Rift headset and begin “operating” the train in 4-D, complete with surround sound, air cannons shooting steam into their face while the floor quakes beneath their feet. One of the first to try it was Minister of Canadian Heritage Mélanie Joly on April 20 in Ottawa, where she tested a beta version. The museum is scheduled to reopen to the public in 2017 for the Canada 150 celebration.

MARSEILLES, FRANCE – The municipal council of Marseilles has confirmed that the southern French city will host the 13th edition of Manifesta, Europe’s roving contemporary art biennial, in 2020. The mayor’s office has formally unblocked subsidies worth €627,000 to pay for the rights to hold the event. From now to 2020, Marseilles will dedicate a total of €2.4m to Manifesta, between a quarter and a third of the biennial’s projected budget. “This is the culmination of two years of work with all the authorities,” Marie-Hélène Féraud-Gregori, the municipal councillor for contemporary art, tells our French sister newspaper Le Journal des Arts. “After Marseille-Provence 2013, this is excellent news for culture in Marseilles and more generally for the city’s standing within Europe,” she says. In 2013, Marseilles and the surrounding region became European Capital of Culture, launching the waterfront Museum of European and Mediterranean Civilisations, France’s first national museum outside Paris, among other major projects.

ATXURRA, SPAIN – Spanish archaeologists say they have discovered an exceptional set of Paleolithic-era cave drawings that could rank among the best in a country that already boasts some of the world’s most important cave art. Chief site archaeologist Diego Garate said that an estimated 70 drawings were found on ledges 300m (1,000 ft) underground in the Atxurra cave in the northern Basque region. He described the site as being in “the Champions League” of cave art and among the top 10 sites in Europe. The engravings and paintings feature horses, buffalo, goats and deer, dating back 12,500-14,500 years.

BEIJING, CHINA – Christie's will open an exhibition space in Beijing in the autumn “reflecting their ongoing commitment and growth in China”, despite the softening in the country’s art market since 2015. Although Christie’s has had an office in Beijing for many years, the larger premises will provide permanent viewing and exhibition facilities. Exact details of the location and an opening date are yet to be confirmed, but Christie’s global president Jussi Pylkkanen says the plan is to launch with an exhibition of international art highlights from Christie’s November New York sales.

COPENHAGEN, DENMARK – These days, consumers of culture are not necessarily satisfied by simply experiencing what others have created. They want to participate themselves. Now, the SMK, The National Gallery of Denmark, launches a digital project that will, over the course of the next four years, make the SMK art collection freely available to everyone – for any purpose, ranging from fun to serious production. The objective is to make art relevant to more people. The project is made possible by a generous donation from the Nordea Foundation of DKK 11.7 million (EUR 1.6 million).  In countries such as The Netherlands, the USA and the UK, large museums have digitised their collections and made them available to everyone for years now, thereby endeavouring to meet the demands of present and future consumers of art and culture who are no longer satisfied with being spectators. They want to participate actively, and they want to put culture to use in their own lives. The lessons learnt from these efforts are clear: being able to actively select, repurpose, remix and share works means that far more people access and use the collections. Including people who would not usually have visited or used the museum.

NEW YORK, USA – Less than 48 hours before the Whitney Museum’s show on portraiture opened last week, Scott Rothkopf was urging an art handler to rotate a hanging Calder wire head “45 degrees to the left.” It might seem surprising for a chief curator to concern himself with such minutiae, but intense attention to detail is one of the qualities that catapulted Mr. Rothkopf from an art magazine editor to the top ranks of one of the leading cultural institutions in the country at just 38 years old.

TORONTO, CANADA – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has revived the idea of Toronto playing host to World Expo 2025, promising Mayor John Tory in a letter that the federal government will talk about “next steps” should city council support such a bid. “We are committed to strengthening Canada’s place in the world as well as restoring our country’s reputation as an active and constructive partner of the international community,” the Prime Minister’s letter says.

DETROIT, USA – “We are not here to fix Detroit’s problems. We are here to learn from Detroit. This is a learning platform,” said Joseph Grima. Grima, the director of IdeasCity, a symposium hosted by the New York–based New Museum, sat in a circle flanked by mostly-young artists, activists, and designers in a utility building on the grounds of a shuttered city-owned hospital. For over two hours, the group reacted to the first days of the laboratory, an exhaustive schedule of talks, debates, and tours, to discuss its role in Detroit. A post-industrial hipster summer camp this is not: Participants used the six-day event as a space to discuss the role of culture in making cities more vibrant, equitable spaces.

DETROIT, USA – I didn’t know what to expect as I prepared for the first evening of Ideas City Detroit (ICD) on April 25. An initiative of the New Museum in New York, ICD is a weeklong studio laboratory and one-day conference, created to “address challenges and opportunities arising in urban reconstruction.” Last week was the first time the museum brought the venture to Detroit, Michigan, engaging 41 fellows in the process: one-third from abroad; one-third from the United States; and one-third from Detroit itself. The fellows, myself among them, were immersed in a five-day program that featured presentations from local municipal leaders and cultural producers, site visits around the city, and lab time for fellows to brainstorm potential ideas for the city’s structure.

INTERNATIONAL – When Jane Jacobs published The Death and Life of Great American Cities in 1961, she was a lone voice with no credentials speaking up against the most powerful ideas in urban planning. Fifty-five years later, on Jacobs's 100th birthday (honored in today's Google Doodle), urban dwellers are all living in her vision of the great American city. The Death and Life of Great American Cities was a reaction to urban planning movements that wanted to clear entire city blocks and rebuild them, believing beautiful architecture was superior to crowded streets. Jacobs argued this ignored everything that made cities great: the mixture of shops, offices, and housing that brought people together to live their lives. And her vision triumphed.

ITALY – Italy will spend one billion euros to restore an unparalleled but often neglected collection of monuments, museums and ancient sites, in the biggest such investment for decades, the government announced on Monday. The money will be spent on restoring and maintaining the ancient Roman ruins of Pompeii and Herculaneum, the Uffizi Galleries in Florence and museums in Rome and Naples. Around €40 million will be spent on sprucing up the Reggia di Caserta, a vast Bourbon palace and landscaped park near Naples that was built to rival Versailles, but which in recent years has been characterised by mismanagement and poor upkeep. Money will also be poured into clearing and mapping the Via Francigena, an ancient pilgrimage route running from Paris, across the Alps and down the Italian peninsula to Rome. Past governments have frequently made grandiose promises to inject much-needed funds into the country’s archaeological and historical sites, but the administration of Matteo Renzi, the prime minister, insisted that this time the money really will materialise.