During the 18th century, spice attracted both traders and pirates to Penang, an island harbor for ships on the Strait of Malacca in Malaysia. Now, government officials are hoping that 21st-century vanguard architecture and luxurious beachfront resorts will once again draw international visitors to the island—this time, investors and tourists. To aid in the effort, municipal authorities have tapped Asymptote Architecture to design a $7 billion, 256-acre mixed-use complex called Penang Global City Center (PGCC). Images: Courtesy Asymptote'Hani Rashid + Lise Anne Couture The sinuous towers of Penang Global City Center, designed by Asymptote, will rise from a stage-like plinth.

The first conflict at yesterday’s New York City Planning Commission hearing on Columbia University’s 17-acre Manhattanville expansion plan, a scheme designed by Renzo Piano Building Workshop and Skidmore, Owings and Merrill (SOM), was not over a building but a chair. “Twelve urban planners, and none of them can plan a seating arrangement,” said Harlem resident Nellie Hester Bailey as she took a seat reserved for Columbia staff in the Commission’s cramped 50-seat auditorium. A two-hour meeting ensued, during which community members, who are upset about the university’s plan to displace 5,000 residents and use eminent domain in aid of building

With $158 million to spend, many an art museum might opt to build a new wing or two. Not so the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA), which reopened last weekend with Michael Graves’ long-awaited renovation. The project reclad some of the DIA’s exteriors, rethought the way art is displayed and labeled in its existing galleries, and made interior circulation much clearer and easier. Images: ' John Gallagher (top); Courtesy Detroit Institute of Arts (bottom two). Michael Graves re-clad the exterior and reconfigured the interior of a 1960s-era addition to the Detroit Institute of Arts, opened in 1927. Although construction crews

Arquitectonica’s Las Vegas gamble is finally paying off big with two new projects on the Strip. The Miami-based firm’s $3 billion, 2,998-room Cosmopolitan Resort & Casino is currently under construction on Las Vegas Boulevard, next to the Bellagio. Developed by New York City-based Ian Bruce Eichner, it calls for two, 600-foot-tall twisting blue glass towers perched atop a four-level, 100-foot-tall podium. These 52-story, prism-shaped high-rises are wrapped in fretted balconies; they will contain hotel and condo-hotel units managed by Grand Hyatt. A glass-clad low-rise structure will contain 265,000 square feet of shops and restaurants topped by a five-acre sandy beach and pool.

David Chipperfield’s design for an expansion of the Saint Louis Art Museum was unveiled on November 5, marking a milestone after more than a decade of master-planning, community engagement, and fundraising. The London-based architect has created an elegantly understated 85,000-square-foot new wing for the neo-classical building, nearly doubling its size. Cass Gilbert designed the original structure for the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair. It is located in Forest Park, the city’s primary public green space, dramatically situated at the crest of a hill. Images: Courtesy Saint Louis Art Museum Chipperfield’s addition replaces parking lots to the south and east of

Riverview High School, the masterful yet neglected Paul Rudolph–designed building that is threatened with demolition, has taken another step toward possible resurrection. On Saturday, a jury including internationally renowned architects Toshiko Mori, Charles Gwathmey, FAIA, and Alex Krieger, FAIA, met in the school’s hometown of Sarasota, Florida, to consider five proposals for redeveloping the building. Tomorrow, the jury will present those proposals to the Sarasota School Board, which could select a winner by next March. When, in February 2006, the Sarasota School Board first announced that Riverview was obsolete for its needs, the building’s demolition seemed all but certain: The

Editor’s note: You may read the news digest below or listen to it, plus other news headlines from ArchitecturalRecord.com, as a podcast by clicking this link. Click the play button to begin | Click here to download Jean Nouvel and the developer Hines have unveiled a 75-story skyscraper to be constructed next to the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and the American Folk Art Museum in New York City, according to a November 15 article in The New York Times. The building will contain a hotel, luxury apartments, and three levels of galleries for MoMA, which sold the narrow 17,000-square-foot

The Smithsonian Institution is making historic plans for both its newest and oldest museums. It just awarded a design programming contract for the National Museum of African American History and Culture, slated to open in 2015, and it’s considering an unprecedented public-private redevelopment of its crumbling Arts and Industries Building, which debuted in 1881 as America’s first “National Museum.” On October 30, the Smithsonian announced that Freelon Bond, an association of design firms Davis Brody Bond and The Freelon Group, will conduct a $4 million, 18-month programming study for the new African-American museum. The architects held their first meeting with

The finger-pointing has already begun in response to a lawsuit filed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) against Frank Gehry’s firm, Gehry Partners, and general contractor Skanska USA. The suit alleges that flaws exist in the design and construction of the $300 million Stata Center for Computer, Information and Intelligence Sciences. Photo: ' Roland Halbe MIT’s suit alleges that the Stata Center has developed “persistent leaks,” and that ice and snow slide from the roof during winter, creating a hazard. The tilting, warped 720,000-square-foot titanium and brick building houses labs, offices, classrooms, and meeting rooms for MIT’s Computer Science

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has selected the French architect Atelier Christian de Portzamparc to design a new complex for the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures. It will be located next to the Pickford Center for Motion Picture Study in Hollywood, California. As of yet there are no formal design plans for the site, which will span eight acres and preserve existing 1940s-era structures, but the idea is to create a campus of 165,000 square feet of new construction and open spaces that engage their surroundings. “It is important that this building conforms to the Hollywood location