Category: visual

Later this week, the compromise design of the tower at the World Trade Center by Daniel Libeskind and David Childs is to be released. “As details of that compromise were uncovered, in interviews conducted over the last week, it appeared that except for a few elements, the tower will closely resemble a design forged initially by architects at Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, house architects for Ground Zero leaseholder Larry Silverstein, in the immediate aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks. That was long before Ground Zero master planner Daniel Libeskind was involved in the redevelopment process.”

A Dutch thief known as “the Monkey” has been arrested inconnection with the theft of two Van Gogh paintings from Amsterdam’s Van Gogh Museum in 2002. “Investigators were baffled by the theft at the time because guards patrolled the premises at night and there was tight security inside, including infra-red systems and cameras. The thieves got in through the roof and police found a rope and a 4.5-metre (15-foot) ladder leaning against the rear of the building.”

Indianapolis is in the midst of a museum building boom worth $300 million, with seven major museum projects underway.

A compromise on the design for the design of the new tower at the World Trade center site has been reached, reports the New York Daily News. “Top aides to Gov. Pataki helped push Daniel Libeskind, whose master plan for Ground Zero was picked earlier this year, and architect David Childs, who works for developer Larry Silverstein, into an agreement.”

“Baghdad may once have rivaled Rome as a symbol of urban splendor, but most of its historic landmarks are gone. Many of the uniform beige subdivisions and drab commercial buildings constructed in the last 50 years are crumbling — an apt symbol of the failures of modernization. The city’s ornate palaces are painful reminders of the authoritarian rule of Saddam Hussein, who is now in American captivity. Coping with this architectural and cultural loss is clearly beyond the scope of responsibility of the U.S. occupying authority.”

“A sculptor, a singer, and a painter were shortlisted yesterday for the Beck’s Future Prize. For those who cherish the annual awards as the Where the Wild Things Are corner of the art world, it is some reassurance that Tonico Lemos Auad sculpts cuddly squirrels and lions out of carpet fluff and also draws on bananas; Susan Philipsz records songs and broadcasts them over public address systems; while Hayley Tompkins makes scribbled marks on scraps of school graph paper.”

This year’s list of 100 most endangered cultural monuments is out. “The 2004 list has some surprises. Antarctica appears for the first time. The polar caps may be melting, but surely protection can be found for Ernest Shackleton’s expedition hut. The hut is infested with microbes. I can testify that the ruins of Ephesus, the ancient pilgrimage city with the Temple of Artemis, now in Turkey, are infested with tourists. I felt like a total pest when I visited that site six years ago. The place was crawling with us. The list also features sites that straddle national boundaries.”

The Museum of Modern Art has bought $40 million worth of art as it builds its new $858 million home. “Most prominent among the acquisitions is “Diver,” a drawing by Jasper Johns that is widely considered to be one of the most important works on paper of the 20th century. The museum said it had also bought several other seminal works by modern masters like Picasso and Francis Bacon.”

The Pew Charitable Trust s is unlikely to continue supporting the Barnes Collection if it is unable to move to downtown Philadelphia. Pew preseident Rebecca Rimel testified at a hearing to determine whether the Barnes should be allowed to break its founder’s trust to move.

“Few cities in the world occupy as strong a hold over the collective imagination as Baghdad. Set at the crossroads between East and West, the city was one of the first great power centers of the Islamic world. Its name still conjures up a mix of images, from the rich intellectual heritage depicted in its ancient texts to the exotic fantasies scattered through the pages of the “Arabian Nights.” Its emergence as a world capital marked the beginning of centuries of cultural dominance by the Middle East at a time when Europe was floundering through the Dark Ages. Today that legacy has understandably been pushed to the background.”