Good afternoon and welcome back to the start of another week, the last of October. Time is certainly flying as we head into our third pandemic winter, but hopefully, this one will be a bit more lively.
Here’s what’s going on today:
The four-year Pompidou Center renovations are delayed until after the 2024 Paris Olympics
At the start of this year, Paris’s Pompidou Center announced a series of “desperately needed” renovations that would require a four-year closure—now the closure is being pushed until after the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, to keep the cultural center open for visitors. The initial renovation plan, which included a host of building system efficiency and accessibility upgrades, as well as asbestos abatement, was scheduled to have started in 2023, which would have allowed the center to reopen in time for the institution’s 50th anniversary.
However, with only three years to tackle the project, newly appointed Pompidou Center president Laurent Le Bon was reportedly unsure of whether the new timetable could be met.
Meanwhile, work is moving ahead on OMA’s Centre Pompidou × Jersey City, the center’s first American outpost. That project is still on track to open in 2024.
H/t to The Art Newspaper
The SoHo and NoHo rezonings move one step closer to reality
On October 20, the New York City Planning Commission unanimously voted to approve the 56-block rezonings of SoHo and NoHo, moving the sweeping densification plan one step closer to passage. The proposal will move next to the City Council and finally to Mayor de Blasio’s desk if it passes there. While preservation and community groups have opposed the rezoning on the claims that it would allow unfettered development and displace artists and other residents, the de Blasio administration has hit back by pointing out that SoHo is already one of the wealthiest (and whitest) neighborhoods in the city. Under the rezoning, it’s projected that 1,829 residential units would be created over the next ten years, with 382 to 573 earmarked as affordable under the Mandatory Inclusionary Housing program, and about double that built in the decade after.
H/t to The Real Deal
The latest Rockefeller Center installation is a colorful homage to Día de los Muertos
Visitors to Rockefeller Center in Manhattan will be greeted with a very different installation than the greyscale KAWS piece that preceded it. Now on display through November 2, a colorful fiberglass dragon and jaguar are standing guard over the center’s Central Plaza; both are alebrijes, statues intended to serve as spirit guides during Día de Los Muertos celebrations, when the dead return and are honored by their living relatives. Two other statues of skeletal catrinas, ornately dressed sculptures of the Aztec “lady of the dead” and queen of the underworld, Miclantecuhtl, have been placed at either side of 30 Rock’s entrance.
H/t to Hyperallergic
A massive bomb cyclone is bringing historic rains to the West Coast
If you’re a West Coast AN reader, better batten down the hatches and bust out your rain gear. A bomb cyclone, defined as when the pressure at the center of a storm drops by 24 millibars in 24 hours, is currently parked over California and delivering Hurricane Sandy-level amounts of water according to Gizmodo. Record rain accumulations are currently pounding cities across the Sunshine State, and with vegetation at a low owing to the ongoing drought and megafires, there’s little to hold back mudslides and flooding.
H/t to Gizmodo
Lipman Architects wins the Garage Museum’s 2022 cinema commission
Visitors to Moscow’s Garage Museum of Contemporary Art next summer will come face-to-face with its latest installation, an eco-theater designed by the Moscow-based LIPMAN ARCHITECTS and realized from empty water bottles in a gabion mesh. The firm beat out 118 other entries in the Garage’s sixth annual design competition. The bottle-wall construction will allow light and air to pass through into the interior while creating a shimmering, ethereal presence.
Studio One Eleven completes a botanical garden at the Museum of Latin American Art
Stateside, the Long Beach and L.A.-based Studio One Eleven has unveiled a new addition to the Museum of Latin American Art in Long Beach, California. The new Corner Garden was designed both to reflect the heritage of Latin America through its diversity of plantings, but also to remain active and interesting throughout the year as different plants bloom and wither. The museum plans to host open-air drawing sessions at the botanical garden in a variety of mediums.
