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The Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMA) marks a milestone today with the opening of its first new structure in 80 years. Designed by Gluckman Mayner Architects, the new 184,000-square-foot Ruth and Raymond G. Perelman Building allows the encyclopedic institution to display 130,000 objects—more than half its total collection of paintings, sculpture, and photography—that had previously sat in storage. Photos: Courtesy Philadelphia Museum of Art Gluckman Mayner Architects transformed the 80-year-old Fidelity Mutual Life Insurance Company Building into the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s new Ruth and Raymond G. Perelman Building, which opens today (top). The designers added a rectangular volume composed

With summer break finished, high school students in Los Angeles began classes again last week. But at least one facility wasn’t ready to accommodate them: the new High School #9 building, also known as the School for the Visual and Performing Arts, designed by Coop Himmelb(l)au. The eagerly anticipated project was originally scheduled to open this month but its completion has been delayed by nearly a year. Image: Courtesy Coop Himmelb(l)au (top); Photo Courtesy Los Angeles Unified School District (above) Los Angeles’s High School #9, also known as the School for the Visual and Performing Arts, was designed by Coop

Stephen Kanner, a principal of Kanner Architects in Los Angeles, and his friend Joe Gaddo, an architect based in Ghana, are helping to develop a cement additive that could decrease construction costs there by a one third—no small accomplishment in a country where concrete is the preferred building material and yet few people are able to afford it. Image: Courtesy Kanner Architects Kanner Architects, based in Los Angeles, designed Augustino Neto Condominiums, a residential complex in Accra, Ghana. The building will be constructed using PozzoGhana, a new form of low-cost cement. The new additive is called PozzoGhana, a wordplay on

Skyscraper enthusiasts who thought that the Japanese are beginning construction on “X-Seed 4000,” an 800-story building envisioned by Taisei Construction Corporation, will be disappointed to learn that the project is nowhere near execution—despite recent reports that suggested otherwise. Image: ' Taisei Corporation Contrary to recent rumors, Taisei has no plans to begin construction on the 4,000-meter-tall “X-Seed 4000” building. “It was never meant to be built,” says Georges Binder, managing director of Buildings & Data, which compiles data on buildings worldwide. “The purpose of the plan was to earn some recognition for the firm, and it worked.” Taisei conceived X-Seed

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 The city of St. Petersburg, Russia, which UNESCO has listed as a world heritage site since 1990 thanks to its well-preserved baroque and neo-classical skyline, is at risk of having this designation revoked if current plans for the proposed Gazprom skyscraper move forward. Designed by RMJM, the glass and steel tower for a Russian petroleum company would rise 984 feet—far taller than the

The Tempe Center for the Arts, dubbed “our little Sydney Opera House,” opens this weekend. Like its distant Down Under cousin, the $65.7 million performance hall overlooks a body of water: in this case the Tempe Town Lake, a recreational lake created when the long-dry Salt River was reclaimed during the 1990s. Photos: Courtesy City of Tempe Barton Myers Associates and Architekton collaborated on the design of the Tempe Center for the Arts, which opens this weekend. The city’s former mayor Neil Giuliano, who helped get the project going during his term as mayor between 1994 and 2004, dubbed the

Larry Silverstein announced at a press conference yesterday that his development firm will put out to bid 70 construction packages for three office skyscrapers at the World Trade Center site by November, with foundation and steel work set to begin in January. Representatives from Foster & Partners, Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners, and Maki and Associates were also on hand to present the latest schematic designs for these buildings—the most detailed views yet of what people visiting the site might see when construction finishes in 2012. Image: Courtesy RSHP, Team Macarie, SPI Detailed designs were released yesterday for three office

The new U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, which is scheduled to open this month, will only be accessible to visitors who undergo extensive security checks. The State Department has tried to deflect attention from the compound, but Internet users got an unexpected peak at it when images were posted online this spring. After a blogger discovered this rendering of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad on Berger Devine Yaeger's Web site, The Associated Press, the British Broadcasting Corporation, and other news agencies published it. Berger Devine Yaeger (BDY), of Kansas City, Missouri, and Sorg Associates, based in Washington, D.C., designed the embassy