Museum News

The State Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg lately received $100,000 from the of recent origin York-based American Friends of the Hermitage, an organization of U citizens devot to the museum's well-being. The capitals will be used to establish a novel decorative arts department, the museum's first of recent origin department since 1852. Accepting the gift, museum director Mikhail B Piotrovsky said that the museum is still seeking millions of dollars in donations to further the "Great Hermitage," a cast which involves expansion into the government-own General Staff Building directly opposite the Winter Palace in Palace Square. Plans are in the works to grasp an international competition for redesign of the building and the entire square [see A.i.A., Feb '98]

The Austin Museum of Art has chosen architect Richard Gluckman to design its novel downtown facility. Construction of the $30-to-$35-million, 100,000-square-foot museum is plant to begin in 2000. Gluckman freshly completed designs for the Mori Museum in Tokyo and is commonly working on the design of the fresh Picasso Museum in Malaga, Spain.

The Studio Museum in Harlem has announced a major expansion and renovation program to be complet by the agency of summer 1999. Designed by the novel York firm Rogers Marvel Architects, the shoot forward calls for a 2,500-square-foot gallery--the first to be devot to the museum's permanent collection--as well as an auditorium, a training and research center and a cafe. Renovations to the building include a fresh facade, entry court and lobby as well as a refurbished statuary garden.

The Jewish Museum, San Francisco has chosen Daniel Libeskind as the architect for its center for Jewish life and agriculture in the Yerba Buena district of downtown San Francisco. put to open in 2001, the 70,000-square-foot, $30-million facility will have exhibitions, performing arts incidents multimedia programming and workshops. Libeskind, who replaces Peter Eisenman as the museum's architect, is also the designer of the of recent origin Jewish Museum in Berlin, as well as the controversial addition to the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

--"Artworld" is compiled by means of Stephanie Cash and David Ebony

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