The Louisiana Museum of Modern Art begins the exhibition year 2012 with a presentation of the most pace-setting photographer today, Andreas Gursky. Many of Gursky’s pictures come close to the painterly, others appear highly photographic. With 45 of the artist’s mega-photographs and about 26 smaller photographs, Louisiana’s exhibition spans all of Gursky’s output right up to the very latest photographs.  The exhibition thus gives the viewer the opportunity to follow the transformations and transformative power of the pictures over more than two decades.

Mathematics: A Beautiful Elsewhere with the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain invites the public to participate in a total and original creative experience conceived in association with the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques (IHÉS) and presented under the patronage of UNESCO. The exhibition is an unveiling of the mental landscapes, the infinite horizons and the invisible mysteries of a way of thinking that is fueled by dreams, intuition and creativity.

The twelfth commission in The Unilever Series is by the celebrated British filmmaker Tacita Dean. It is an 11-minute silent 35mm film projected onto a gigantic white monolith standing 13 metres tall at the end of a darkened Turbine Hall. It is the first work in The Unilever Series devoted to the moving image, and celebrates the masterful techniques of analogue film-making as opposed to digital.

Odile Decq designed  L’Opéra Restaurant, located in one of the most famous buildings in opera, the 1,600-seat L’Opéra Garnier, on Place de l’Opéra. The most significant features of the restaurant are the magnificent glass curtain walls that protect the original stone; the curved structures that define the new space and also create the seating areas and even some of the seating; and the simple use of white and red.

Courtesy of YSP

 YSP presents an extraordinary body of new and recent work by renowned Spanish artist Jaume Plensa. Encouraging tactile and sensory exploration, this vibrant exhibition includes a 50-metre curtain of poetry made of suspended steel letters, large illuminated sculptures in the landscape, and engraved gongs that visitors can strike to fill the gallery with sound.

Courtesy of YSP

Designed by Henning Larsen Architects and Batteríið Harpa Concert Hall and Conference Centre is part of an extensive harbour development project in Reykjavik, the East Harbour Project.  Artist Ólafur Elíasson designed the facade and provided the principle for the overall facade design. Situated slightly apart from Reykjavík’s traditional centre, the building will become a significant icon in the city – a visual attraction due to its stunning design. Harpa´s location will mean that, to a great extent, the changing climatic and light effects will be exposed in the facades of the concert building, often in contrast to the narrow streets in the rest of the city.

Photography Ali Bekman

Haaz means pleasure with added value. It is a source for great refinement and enjoyment offering a curational collection chosen by the owners Murat Patavi and Ozlem Avcioglu. The collection celebrates the best, brightest and the most beautiful in the world of design and art world.

In their new two story lofty place, designed by Gokhan Avcioglu, you can find the latest design pieces from Moroso, BD Barcelona, Tom Dixon, Droog Design among many others as well as art pieces from well known and young artists like Damien Hirst, Boo Saville, Zhu Fadong, Shawn Yu and Travelmodus hand picked collection from all over the world..  

Photography Ali Bekman

Photography Ali Bekman

Photography Ali Bekman

Photography Ali Bekman

Photography Ali Bekman

Photography Ali Bekman

After a renovation the Groninger Museum reopened its doors to the public. The entire building has regained its original lustre and and its colours have been fully restored. Several rooms have been thoroughly renovated by the top designers Maarten Baas, Studio Job and Jaime Hayon. They designed, respectively, the Mendini Restaurant, the Job Lounge and the Info Center, the ultramodern digital visitors’ information centre.
The Groninger Museum can hold its own with other top museums in the Netherlands and Western Europe. As a starting point for their spectacular new design of the reception hall Job Lounge, Studio Job took the typical 19th-century private gentlemen’s clubs, frequented by their characteristic members, all smoking and wearing top hats. The Info Center, the new visitors’ information centre, was designed by the young Spanish artist Jaime Hayon, whose work has featured worldwide in the major art and design publications. The Mendini Restaurant on the museum’s premises was refurnished by Maarten Baas, who derived his inspiration from his Clay collection. The furniture objects in this collection have a metal frame and are made of industrial clay. Baas designed a series of new Clay models especially for the Mendini Restaurant. They are entirely handmade.

The Museo del Novecento (Museum of the Twentieth Century), located in the Palazzo dell’Arengario, is a public venue dedicated to the exhibition the display of Milan’s collection of Twentieth-Century Art.
The collection of the Museo del Novecento bears witness to the history of Italian art from the Avantgarde at the beginning of XXth Century to nowadays..A 4,000 sq.m. exhibition area dedicated to modern art, where it will be possible to marvel at a special itinerary made up of 400 works of art from the end of 19th century to ‘80s of 20th century

Faustino Winery is located in the Ribera del Duero, one of Spain’s foremost wine-producing regions and designed by Foster and Partners.  The building’s trefoil plan expresses the three main stages of production: fermentation in steel vats; ageing in oak barrels; and maturation in bottles; at its core is an operations hub, from which all stages of the production process can be controlled. Architects used the topography of the site to aid the winemaking process, and to create the optimum working conditions, while reducing the building’s energy demands and its impact on the landscape.

After New York, Los Angeles and London, Gagosian opened its new gallery, near the Champs Elysees. The Paris gallery, designed by French architect Jean-François Bodin and London studio Caruso St John. Two of the four  floors are dedicated to public exhibitions.

Located in a vast expanse of open parkland near the metropolitan city of Lille is the self-titled Lille  Métropole Museum of Modern Art. Originally opened in 1983, the museum has been the recipient of multiple generous donations over the years, including a vast collection of artworks from Geneviève and Jean Masurel in 1979, including pieces by Picasso, Léger and Miró. Originally designed by Roland Simounet the Lille Métropole Museum of Modern Art has now been extended by Manuelle Gautrand. The emblematic image of the new building is of perforated concrete walls, transplanted to cool northern latitudes, but the relationship between eras, architects, buildings and artworks is more nuanced and complex.

Don Rafael fell in love with the area around Haro, the mythical capital of the Rioja Alta region and around 1877 he began the design and construction of the complex that is today known as the López de Heredia bodega (winery), the oldest in Haro. The visitor’s pavilion of the winery, designed by Zaha Hadid is a modular metallic construction situated in front of the old bodega buildings, and in the future will become the visitors’ access to the bodega. It was conceived as a movable  building, and was erected to mark the 125th anniversary of the bodega in the 2002 Alimentaria Fair in Barcelona.  The pavilion also houses a stand used in the Brussels exhibition from the early 20th century.

Make reservation at Marques de Riscal

The  landmark Hotel Marqués de Riscal,  is  in the “City of Wine”:  winery, hotel and spa in El Ciego,  in the heart of the Rioja wine region. Designed by world famous architect Frank  Gehry, the hotel is his second masterpiece in Spain, after Bilbao’s Guggenheim Museum. For this project Gehry has used materials and forms similar to those used in the Bilbao Guggenheim Museum, but this time the titanium which covers the structure are in the colors of Marqués de Riscal: Pink: for the red wine, Gold: the mesh which covers the bottle, Silver: the capsule of the bottle

Herederos del Marqués de Riscal wanted a modernistic building that aroused emotions. To achieve that they thought of Frank O. Gehry, known for works such as the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. But they  were not certain that Gehry would accept. However, the proposal was offered accompanied by a wine of his birth year (1929), and he accepted. 

The 43 authentic guest rooms and suites pay tribute to Frank O. Gehry´s  design. For a more spacious retreat, the 29 bedrooms located in the Spa Wing with unique views over the vineyards, the Gehry Wing, and the town of Elciego.
The Marqués de Riscal Restaurant and the 1860 Restaurant offer an elite selection of wines of the world and offer the best traditional Basque-Riojan cuisine combined with modern influences. The Wine Bar Vinoteca and the Rooftop Lounge – Library present a stylish, yet comfortable atmosphere with panoramic views.

The “City of Wine” is a 21st century chateau in which the different experiences that wine can offer may be enjoyed.

Make reservation at Marques de Riscal

The 75 hectares of vineyards owned by Bodegas Ysios are set in the highest area of La Rioja, stretching across the localities of Laguardia and El Villar, in Rioja Alavesa. Standing in the loveliest part of the Rioja Alavesa the surprising silhouette rises of Bodegas Ysios,is dedicated to wine and inaugurated in 2001. For the project development, Ysios turned to a multi-disciplinary team of professionals, headed by the architect Santiago Calatrava. His mission was to construct a unique, avant-garde winery, conceived as a place of worship, a place exclusively dedicated to the creation of wines boasting nothing less than the highest quality, with the decisive guidance of expert oenologists. Its name, Ysios, pays specific homage to Isis and Osiris, two Egyptian gods closely related to the world of wine. 

The Centre Pompidou-Metz shares the vocation of the original Centre Pompidou: to present and help discover all forms of artistic expression, to raise public awareness of the major works of the 20th and 21st century, and to take part in Europe’s cultural landscape. In short: represent a major centre for exhibitions and artistic initiative, and a reflection of contemporary creation. The building, designed by architects Shigeru Ban and Jean de Gastines, includes public areas in addition to the many exhibition areas, a creative studio for projections and performances, an auditorium, a bookshop-boutique, and a restaurant-cafeteria

In order to apprecaite The Collection one must know Peggy’s life mission.  She was the chief patron of the world’s foremost collections of modern art of 20th century. Peggy used to say that it was her duty to protect the art of her own time, and she dedicated half of her life to this mission, as well as to the creation of the museum that still carries her name.

Palazzo Venier dei Leoni was designed in the 1750s by architect Lorenzo Boschetti. From 1910 to c. 1924 the house was owned by  Marchesa Luisa Casati, hostess to the Ballets Russes, and the subject of numerous portraits by artists as various as Boldini, Troubetzkoy, Man Ray and Augustus John. In 1949, Peggy Guggenheim purchased Palazzo Venier from the heirs of Viscountes Castlerosse and made it her home for the following thirty years. Early in 1951, Peggy Guggenheim opened her home and collection to the public and continued to do so every year until her death in 1979.
In 1950 Peggy organized the first exhibition of Jackson Pollock in Italy, in the Ala Napoleonica of the Museo Correr in Venice. Her collection was in the meantime exhibited in Florence and Milan, and later in Amsterdam, Brussels, and Zurich. From 1951 Peggy opened her house and her collection to the public annually in the summer months. During her 30-year Venetian life, Peggy Guggenheim continued to collect works of art and to support artists, such as Edmondo Bacci and Tancredi Parmeggiani. In 1962 Peggy Guggenheim was nominated Honorary Citizen of Venice. 

Peggy died aged 81 on 23 December 1979. Her ashes are placed in a corner of the garden of Palazzo Venier dei Leoni, next to the place where she customarily buried her beloved dogs. Since this time, the Guggenheim Foundation has converted and expanded Peggy Guggenheim’s private house into one of the finest small museums of modern art in the world.

by Andrea Sarti

by Andrea Sarti

by Ozlem Avcioglu

by Andrea Sarti

Vitra Haus designed byJacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron is the new home of Vitra’s Home Collection. The  five-storey structure is built of 12 ‘houses’ – five houses are at the base and seven other houses are stacked upon one another.

MAXXI is the first National Museum of XXI Century Arts  devoted to the contemporary creativity. The Museum designed by Zaha Hadid Architects.The MAXXI design goes beyond the concept of the building-museum. The complexity of the volumes, the curving walls, the variations and intersections of the levels determine a very rich spatial and functional configuration that visitors may pass through via ever different and unexpected routes. Multiple environments coexist in a sequence of galleries illuminated with natural light filtered via a special roof system.

In the heart of Paris’s museum land,  the Musée du quai Branly has an exceptional location on the banks of the River Seine, at the foot of the Eiffel Tower. The arts of Africa, Oceania, Asia, and the Americas now form part of the historical and artistic grand tour of the capital. The Musée du quai Branly is an innovative cultural institution – museum, educational and research center, and public living space all in one. Built on one of the last available sites in the heart of Paris, the architectural design of this original project is the work of Jean Nouvel.

If the weather is good, do not miss cafe Branly, located in the museums beautiful garden, with a view of the Moai head.