Rafael Viñoly Architects will transform Detroit’s vacant Barbour School into a new campus.
Rafael Viñoly Architects has been selected to lead the adaptive reuse of Detroit’s Levi Barbour Intermediate School, a century-old building that has stood empty since 2009. The project is backed by entrepreneur and education advocate Kyle Smitley, who recently acquired the roughly 186,000-square-foot building in the city’s Pingree Park neighborhood and is leading a restoration effort of about $30 million. Smitley founded Detroit Achievement Academy and Detroit Prep, which share a block with Barbour, about a decade ago. Originally designed by Detroit firm Malcomson & Higginbotham, the school will retain its historic character but requires major structural, mechanical, electrical, accessibility, and life-safety upgrades. The architects will also study how to preserve the building’s defining features while adding the technology, sustainability measures, and infrastructure needed for a modern learning environment. New York-based Parts and Labor Design, founded by Detroit-area native Jeremy Levitt, will collaborate on the project. Construction is expected to begin in spring 2027, with students arriving in 2029.
The Broad will send 164 works to Paris while it builds its expansion.
The Broad will lend 164 works to the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris for its largest exhibition ever staged outside Los Angeles, as construction continues on the museum’s $100 million, 55,000-square-foot expansion. “The Broad Collection — Los Angeles in Paris” will run April 21 through August 30 and occupy nearly all of the Frank Gehry-designed building. It will include works by Jean-Michel Basquiat, Barbara Kruger, Ed Ruscha, Cindy Sherman, and Andy Warhol, along with one of Yayoi Kusama’s infinity rooms and recent acquisitions from Los Angeles artists including Lauren Halsey and Laura Owens. The Broad will remain open during construction, though its 35,000-square-foot third floor will close entirely late next year as crews connect the original building to the expansion. A new ground-floor gallery converted from storage will open later this year, bringing the number of works on view in Los Angeles to more than 160. The collection will return for the expansion’s opening in 2028, ahead of the Summer Olympics, adding 70 percent more gallery space.
Aldar unveils plans for Noma, a cultural district in Abu Dhabi’s Saadiyat island.
Aldar, the Abu Dhabi government-owned developer, has announced plans for a new cultural district called Noma. The unveiling comes ahead of the inaugural Frieze Abu Dhabi, which runs November 19–22. Aldar, the official partner of Frieze Abu Dhabi, revealed the project during Frieze London, where its logo appeared on place settings at the fair’s Collectors’ Dinner. The name stands for “North of Manarat Al Saadiyat,” referring to the arts center in Abu Dhabi’s Saadiyat Cultural District that will serve as one of Frieze Abu Dhabi’s venues and has previously hosted Abu Dhabi Art. Noma joins a growing number of cultural districts across the Gulf, including Dubai’s Alserkal Avenue, Riyadh’s JAX District, and Abu Dhabi’s Miza neighborhood.
A new Edward Hopper biography reveals the painter’s first oils were copied from a magazine for amateurs.
All six of Edward Hopper’s early oil paintings, made before he enrolled in art school, were based on the work of other artists, according to a new biography by Louis Shadwick. In Edward Hopper: A Life, Shadwick traces most of the paintings to color plates in Art Interchange, a popular periodical for amateur artists that encouraged readers to copy its images and supplied instructions for doing so. Hopper’s first work, Old Ice Pond at Nyack, made between 1898 and 1900 and long considered one of his only confirmed oil depictions of his hometown, is a copy of A Winter Sunset by tonalist painter Bruce Crane. Shadwick also identified sources by John Francis Murphy, Edward Moran, Fred Pansing, and an unknown watercolorist. The source of the sixth painting, Winter Scene, has not been found, though it closely resembles two 1893 paintings by Edgar Barnes Gilson.
Prairie, the artist-run Chicago gallery, will close after nine years.
Prairie, an artist-run gallery in Chicago known for championing artists early in their careers, will close after nine years. The gallery announced that its upcoming group exhibition, “Retrospective,” will be its last. Founded in 2017 by artists Tim Mann and Jack Schneider in their shared studio, Prairie took its name from the ecosystem that existed around Chicago before colonization and industrialization. Unlike many recent gallery closures, Schneider said Prairie’s had little to do with finances. The gallery never sought or made a profit, he said, operating on occasional sales, fundraising, and grants. Mann said the closure had been planned for a year.
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Gucci’s Florentine archive has become the heart of the house.
How Hermes Pan and Fred Astaire established themselves as Hollywood’s most inseparable creative duo.
Diplo reinvents the run club with a race followed by a DJ set.
