Headed by the architecture firm Herzog & de Meuron and with a $200 million budget, the restoration of the Park Avenue Armory is in excellent hands. The New York Times reports that the refurbishment of the Armory, expected to be complete in 2018, has continued almost uninterrupted since the Park Avenue Conservancy signed a 99-year lease with the state 7 years ago. Yet it was only in the year 2000 that the Park Avenue Armory made the list of the world’s top 100 most endangered structures, according to the World Monuments Fund. When completed, the Park Avenue Armory would “visibly straddle past and present while being actively used. It will be living, lived-in history.” (more…)

The new Parrish Museum building, designed by Herzog & de Meuron, is a sleek longhouse-inspired design, almost resembling an ultramodern chicken coop in Southampton. It hosts details such as a 600-foot-long outside wall of seamless concrete with a surface impression of wood grain, and the roof extends dramatically over a courtyard for outdoor events. The museum originally agreed to an $80 million design that was a host of connected buildings that would look like Long Island artist studios, but eventually requested the current iteration, costing just $26 million. (more…)

Herzog & de Meuron‘s converted oil tanks, located underneath the Tate Modern, to open as new three exhibition spaces on July 18, 2012. In a review of The Tanks, the Guardian comments that: “they have the confident geometry of things made not for appearances but for a substantial practical use, and their concrete surfaces have a raw force.”

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This summer the recently opened Serpentine Gallery Pavilion in London celebrates its 12^th anniversary.  Since 2000, this architectural event has featured temporary structures by such designers as Zaha Hadid and Jean Nouvel.  This year, Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, along with Swiss architects Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron (Herzog & de Meuron), known for their design of the Tate Modern and previous collaboration with Ai on Beijing’s Bird Nest National Stadium, has dug down into the Kensington Gardens to create an underground pavilion commemorating its long history.

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‪‬Ai Weiwei and Herzog & de Meurons’ plans for Serpentine Pavilion face slight set back as the prior pavilion foundations— which were integrally incorporated into the new design—had actually been removed

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‪‬Ai Weiwei and architects Herzog & de Meurons’ design renderings for underground Serpentine Pavilion on view in slideshow. The 12th annual version of the pavilion will be completed in time for the London 2012 Festival.

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‪‬Tate Modern begins construction on new £215m extension project designed by architects Herzog & De Meuron with 75% of funds raised, beginning by converting 30-meter diameter oil tanks into dedicated live performance space

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Tiermetabolismus V (Katzchen) by Jonathan Meese at Bortolami Gallery, Art Basel Main Fair, Hall B, Booth I-09.

Art Observed will be on site as of today for the ninth edition of the America’s biggest contemporary art fair: Art Basel Miami Beach which will open to the public on Thursday December 2 and will run through Sunday, December 5.

The main section of the fair will house over 180 galleries and over 40,000 are expected following the December 2nd opening.  Annette Schönholzer and Marc Spiegler are the main fair organizers alongside its main sponsor UBS with Cartier, NetJets and AXA Art as the associate sponsors.  While Art Basel is still the main draw, the NADA Fair (the New Art Dealers Alliance) up the road at the Dauville Beach Resort will open to the public Thursday December 2. It will run through Sunday December 5 and also should not be missed.

Untitled (Art Fair Floor) by Ryan Reggiani.  Kate Werble Gallery at Nada Art Fair, booth 312.

The fair week is notable for its bridging of the Latin American buyers with American and British art centers as well as its uniquely intense amalgamation of social, media, fashion and other spheres of influence into the business of selling art.

The global art market seems to have stabilized this year and the main fair, along with its very significant satellites, should be met with lively buying this round.  Beyond this, all around Miami, the social calendar will be infused with events to the point where there is little chance to avoid regretfully missing something.

A view of an installation by Terrence Koh at The Island, an event during the week (see bel0w).

More text and related links after the jump… .

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The Royal College of Art Secret Postcard fundraiser via The Guardian

-The Royal College of Art’s Secret 2009 event has 2,500 postcards for sale for £40, made by artists including Anish Kapoor, Grayson Perry and Yoko Ono.  Though buyers don’t know who the artist is until after they buy. [Times UK]

-Penelope Curtis has been appointed director of Tate Britain, the first woman to hold a directorship at Tate. [Guardian]

-Tracey Emin opens a new exhibition in New York, that, while popular, comes nowhere near the levels of sales or attendance she normal receives in Britain. [NY Times]

An artist’s rendering of Olafur Eliasson’s ‘Cirkelbroen’ bridge to be built in Copenhagen via Artinfo

-Olafur Eliasson has designed a bridge to be completed by 2012 in Copenhagen’s harbor. Called ‘Brikelbroen,’ the bridge is comprised of five circles that take pedestrians on a winding path rather than straight across. [Artinfo]

To stay apprised of most of the relevant art news for this past week… (more…)

Head of a Muse, Raphael via Guardian UK

-Offered for the first time at public auction as part of Christie’s Old Masters sale, Raphael’s drawing “Head of a Muse”- a study for a figure in one of his Vatican frescoes, if it achieves its estimate £12-16million, will break the auction record for an old master drawing currently held by Michelangelo’s and Leonardo da Vinci’s works [Guardian UK]

-As art collectors become more cautious with their purchases, dealers at Frieze and FIAC fairs put works on reserve, among them $40 million Mondrian allegedly put on hold for Bernard Arnault [Bloomberg]

-Ms. Temkin, the chief curator of painting and sculpture at The Museum of Modern Art in New York, introduces unexpected changes, unframing certain paintings and subjecting the almost sacralized permanent collection to frequent renewal [The New York Times]

“Your Mercury Ocean” Skateboard by Olafur Eliasson via aarting

-Another collaboration between Mekanism and Olafur Eliasson results in a 13-ply deck 3d patterned skateboard with a mirror coating [aarting]
-In related, Olafur Eliasson commissions by the mayor of Copenhagen to design a bridge for the Danish capital; the artist shares his plans for a transparent bridge in a close vicinity to the water [The Art Newspaper]

– The survey carried out by the Art Fund, the UK’s independent art charity, shows that despite the substantial drop in public funding and investment income, a figure that proves to grow in the context of economic fall is the number of visits to museums [Art Knowledge News]

-In the midst of economic uncertainty, gallery Matthew Marks, which represents artists such as Jasper Johns, and Peter Fischli and David Weiss, plans on expansion with a new space on the West Coast [The New York Times]

To stay apprised of most of the relevant art news for this past week… (more…)

Os Gemeos at work on their mural in at Houston and Elizabeth via The Art Collectors

Brazilian street art duo Os Gemeos are completing a mural on the corner of Houston and Bowery in New York on the site of the Keith Haring tribute memorial [The Art Collectors]
A rare interview with Bruce Nauman after he was awarded the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale [The Art Newspaper]
The British Museum has raised 2/3 of the $200 million for its new Herzog & de Meuron-designed wing [Bloomberg]

Hirst’s recurring butterfly imagery adorns Lance Armstrong’s bike frame via Designweek

With perhaps one of the more thought provoking of the Livestrong bike creations, Damien Hirst has designed the bike Lance Armstrong will use during the final stage of the Tour de France with his recurring mortality metaphor of butterflies [Galerie Perrotin]
A breakdown of ArtNews’s Top 200 Collectors: 81% collect contemporary, 34% collect modern, 9% collect Impressionist, and 9% collect Old Masters [ArtNews]

Digital rendering of Claude and François-Xavier Lalanne’s menagerie on New York’s Park Avenue via NY Times

From Sept. 13 through Nov. 20, Claude and François-Xavier Lalanne’s animal menagerie will adorn the medians between 52nd and 57th Streets in Midtown Manhattan [NY Times]

Franz West’s The Ego and the Id via the The Public Art Fund

In related, Franz West’s 20 foot ‘The Ego and the Id’ will be installed Central Park at 5th Ave & 60th tomorrow, on loan from Amalia Dayan and Adam Lindemann through March [PublicArtFund]
BBC1 announces a four-part documentary focusing on Picasso, Dali, Matisse and Warhol, airing next year [BBC]
The Castlestone art fund is buying Post War art from deceased and non-producing artists such as Picasso and Warhol as it posits that pricing has dropped 20-40% from last year [International Advisor via ArtMarketMonitor] and a related email gaffe from Castlestone [ArtNewspaper]

Performance view of Anselm Kiefer’s ‘Am Anfang’ via Opera de Paris

German painter and sculptor Anselm Kiefer directed and designed, ‘Am Anfang,’ or ‘At the Beginning,’ for the Opera de Bastille in Paris, is currently running [TheGuardian]
In related, contemporary artist Zhang Huan will design and direct a 250 year anniversary production of Handel’s Semele in Brussels for the 2009/10 season [ArtDaily]

A new Banksy mural in Africa via SlamxHype

A number of Banksy murals in Africa have popped up, possibly in Mali [World’s Best Ever] and related, 120,000 have visited the artist’s exhibition in his hometown of Bristol [BBC Bristol via FAD]
Charles Saatchi has replaced his Abstract America show his Kings Road gallery for an installation promoting the Jaguar XJ [Vogue]

John Morton at the site of his sound installation in Central Park via NY Times

A pedestrian tunnel in Central Park is the site of an immersive sound installation by John Morton [NY Times]
A brush fire near Getty Center caused Getty museum officials to evacuate 1,600 visitors and 800 employees [LA Times]

Michael Jackson series by Andy Warhol via ArtDaily

A portrait of Michael Jackson by Andy Warhol is dropped from a NY auction after overwhelming inquiries [ArtDaily]
Phillips de Pury & Company is launching a series of new theme auctions, including 21st century art and “New York, New York” [Artdaily]
Abu Dhabi Art, a new art fair, will debut in November [Artinfo]

A “plinther” participant in Antony Gormley’s One & Other via The Guardian

Antony Gormley’s ‘One&Other’ continues its 100-day run on the fourth plinth of Trafalgar Square in London [One & Other (livefeed)]
In related participatory British art, 23 museum visitors sufferred minor injuries during Robert Morris’s recent Bodyspacemotionthings reprisal at the Tate Modern [ArtInfo]
The Tate announces the judges of the 2010 Turner Prize [The Art Newspaper]

Rendering of Herzog & de Meuron’s 56 Leonard St. tower including the site specific sculpture designed by artist Anish Kapoor via Andrea Schwan Inc.

The design for Pritzer Prize winning architects, Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron’s Tribeca tower was released earlier this week. The $650 million project will be 57-stories high with condominiums ranging from 1,430 square feet to 6,360 square feet, and is projected to be open in 2010. The tower is said to house 145 residences each with its unique floor plan and complete with a private balcony. The translucent skyscraper will be the first high-rise commission for the Swiss architects, who have had their hand in designing the Beijing National Stadium in China for the recent 2008 Olympic games, the Tate Modern in London, and the de Young Museum in San Francisco. The contemporary artist Anish Kapoor has been commissioned to install one of his signature stainless steel, reflective sculptures on the ground floor. The tower will appear to be resting a top his sculpture, and will be the first permanent public artwork for the artist in New York City.

Construction Begins On Herzog & De Meuron’s 56 Leonard Street [Artdaily]
Olympic Bird’s Nest architects design NY high-rise [Associated Press]
A Stack of Houses [NYTimes]
Fantastical Form in TriBeCa: Herzog & de Meuron’s 56 Leonard St. [NYSun]
At 57 Stories, 56 Leonard St. to Tower Over Tribeca [Tribeca Tribune]
One’s Huge, the Other’s Crazy [NYMag]
Herzog & de Meuron reach for the sky [World Architecture News]
Herzog & de Meuron’s Plans Unveiled for New York City Tower [ArtForum]
New York Developer commissions Anish Kapoor for Herzog & de Meuron residential project in Tribeca [ArtObserved]

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New extension to Tate Modern, designed by Herzog & de Meuron via Tate

The Tate Modern has announced a new development in the plan for it’s new wing. World-renowned Swiss Architectural firm, Herzog & de Meuron, has designed the new plan for the extension, called Tate Modern 2 (TM2). The extension was originally designed as a cubic glass-cast pyramid shaped structure, but has been redesigned to better complement the structure of the existing Tate Modern and be more sustainable. The project has a $429 million budget, and has so far received $100 million from the government, $14 million from the London Development Agency, and $26 million from private donors for the project. Work on the site will ensue in 2009, and is projected to be finished by 2012, but if the budget is not met, this could cause a delay in its completion.

New twist to the rise of Tate Modern [Financial Times]
Tate Goes Green with New Plans [Artforum]
Transforming Tate Modern: Green Scheme for Tate Modern’s New Building [Artdaily]
Tate revises £215m extension plan [BBC]
Tate Modern Redesigns New Wing; May Not Open in 2012 [Bloomberg]
£100m new wing plan for Tate Modern [Telegraph]
New Tate Modern design [Wallpaper]

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Artist Anish Kapoor via Billslater

Indian-born artist, Anish Kapoor, has been commissioned to design a large-scale public sculpture for a new residential tower in Tribeca. In addition to Kapoor, the New York-based real estate company, Alexico Group, has chosen the world-renowned Pritzker Prize winning architectural firm, Herzog & de Meuron to design the building. Izak Senbahar and Simon Elias, principals of the Alexico Group, have announced that the Kapoor sculpture will be installed at ground level and be fully incorporated into the architectural design. The designs for the building and sculpture that will sit at the intersection of Leonard and Church Streets, will be released in the fall, and construction is projected to be completed in Spring 2010 .

New Tribeca Tower to Include Kapoor Sculpture [Artinfo]
A New Tower For Tribeca [VanityFair]
Alexico Group Announces Manhattan Commission to Architects Herzog & De Meuron and Artist Anish Kapoor [Artdaily]
Swiss Firm to Design New TriBeCa Tower [NYTimes]
Alexico Group inked a deal with architects Herzog & de Meuron [NYDailynews]
Herzog & de Meuron and Anish Kapoor to Collaborate on New York Tower [InteriorDesign]
Tribeca Skyscraper to get Sculpture [TheRealDeal]

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Kauffman Desert House in Palm Springs via greatbuildings

Christie’s auction of Neutra house didn’t actually close [NYTimes]
Recent auction results belie underlying market weakness [Economist]
Herzog & de Meuron to design Kolkata Museum of Modern Art [ArtForum]
Ukranians as a new force in art buying [Financial Times]
A financial take on the state of the art market [TheStreet.com]
Guggenheim and Met hunt for museum heads [New York Sun]