New Museum of London designs unveiled

Our daily round-up of news from the art world

Stanton Williams and Asif Khan to design new Museum of London | The Museum of London has announced that its jury has selected architects Stanton Williams and Asif Khan to design its new home on the site of Smithfield Market. The winning design, which was selected from a shortlist of six teams, envisages a museum that will be ‘permeable on all sides’, featuring a covered square and a series of underground chambers that will house the collection. Previous projects by members of the London-based team include the UAL campus for Central St Martin’s, King’s Cross Square and the Stirling Prize winning Sainsbury Laboratory. Read a recent article by Apollo editor Thomas Marks on the importance of city museums here.

Merger between Sydney College of the Arts and UNSW called off | The University of Sydney has called off plans to merge the Sydney College of the Arts with the University of New South Wales following vocal protests from students, teachers, and the wider Australian culture sector. The proposed merger, which was announced in June, sparked widespread criticism over fears that it would compromise the independence of the SCA. The National Association for the Visual Arts warned that the plans could have ‘deleterious consequences for art education in Australia’. ‘Despite the best efforts of all involved, our two institutions have a different vision of what a centre of excellence in the visual arts might entail and the extent to which it is important to preserve the SCA’s distinctive tradition’, said University of Sydney vice-chancellor Michael Spence this morning. The SCA will still be forced to vacate its campus in Sydney’s Callan Park.

Director of Vienna’s Belvedere Museum to step down | Austrian culture minister Thomas Drozda has announced that Belvedere Museum director Agnes Husslein-Arco’s contract will not be renewed due to the director’s misconduct in the post (German language article). Despite the numerous successes of Husslein-Arco’s tenure at the Belvedere, she has come under fire for charging ‘inadmissable expenses’ to the museum and hiring employees for private services, according to ArtNet News. Husslein-Arco will continue as director until the position comes up for renewal in 2017.

Stolen paintings recovered from criminal gang | Works by Salvador Dalí and Tamara de Lempicka that were stolen from a private museum in the Netherlands in 2009 have been recovered by art detectives, reportedly in good condition. The paintings, which were stolen from the now defunct Scheringa Museum of Realist Art in daylight hours, were apparently in the possession of a criminal gang, who ‘did not want to find themselves guilty of the destruction or resale of works of art’ and contacted a detective at Scotland Yard.

Oxford Natural History Museum restoration work damages exhibits | The Oxford Natural History Museum has been forced to revisit its recent £2 million restoration project to clean and restore the institution’s glass roof after experts discovered that exhibits faced ‘irreversible’ damage from increased exposure to sunlight, reports the Daily Telegraph. Planning documents show that the works, completed in 2014, have led to increased temperatures, humidity and levels of ultraviolet light, putting the museum’s collection at risk.

Designs revealed for V&A’s east London satellite | The London Legacy Corporation, the body responsible for the development of the ‘Olympicopolis’ complex in east London, has released detailed plans for the V&A’s new building on the site. Designed by architects O’Donnell + Tuomey and Allies and Morrison, the V&A East will be spread over seven storeys and some 18,000 square metres of space, some of which will be given over to displays from the Smithsonian Institution’s collections.