As we approach the second weekend of April, here is a new set of news to keep you informed and up to date:

World Monuments Announces Ukrainian Heritage Response Fund

Today, the World Monuments Fund (WMF) announced the launch of the Ukrainian Heritage Response Fund, a resource for conservators across the country to support the future rehabilitation of heritage sites threatened or damaged during the ongoing war with Russia.

“World Monuments Fund deplores the loss of life taking place in Ukraine and expresses its solidarity with the Ukrainian people”, noted Bénédicte de Montlaur, president and CEO of WMF, in a press release. “As an organization committed to safeguarding our common global heritage, we believe that the destruction of cultural heritage is a loss for humanity as a whole. Our decades-long experience of responding to crises around the world continues to reveal the lasting consequences of this destruction on communities. »

The Helen Frankenthaler Foundation made an initial gift of $500,000 to the fund.

In recent years, WMF has responded to crises around the world, including in Japan, Iraq, Yemen, Tanzania, Mexico and Peru.

Heatherwick Studio is launching a “tropical opera” in Haikou, China

London’s Heatherwick Studio brings a center for the performing arts to Haikou, the capital of the Chinese province of Hainan. Hainan Performing Arts Center Renderings depict an opera house, concert hall, and theater clustered under a colorful triple-peaked roofline with a jagged edge that rises like a petticoat at the front nods to the region’s rugged volcanic landscape. The project will be Heatherwick Studio’s first-ever concert hall (if that’s not too low a descriptor for a program that includes opera).

Heatherwick won a competition organized by the Haikou Tourism and Culture Investment Holding Group, which wanted to commission a “cultural landmark” for Haikou. Construction of the project will begin later this year.

h/t Building design

Detroit redevelopment the famous United Artists Building begins

Construction has begun on the long-vacant United Artists Building in downtown Detroit. The 18-story, nearly century-old Detroit landmark will be redeveloped into approximately 150 one- and two-bedroom apartments. Twenty percent of the units will be affordable housing, accessible to those with incomes within 80 percent of the area median. In addition to apartments, the redevelopment will include 10,000 square feet of restaurant and commercial space.

Bagley Development Group LLC and Olympia Development are leading the project, according to Urbanize Detroit. The team brought in local architect Hobbs + Black for the design. The building’s redevelopment project, listed in the National Register of Historic Placess, was first announced in 2017 and is part of the Development plan for the Detroit district near Little Caesars Arena. The United Artists Building was a theater that opened in 1928 and closed in 1975 after a long decline.

H/t at Urbanize Detroit

James Florio Wins 2022 Julius Shulman Institute Excellence in Photography Award

The Julius Shulman Institute (JSI) at Woodbury University granted his Julius Shulman Institute Excellence in Photography Award on aArtist James Florio. To coincide with the honor, an exhibition of his work titled Of light, time and matterwill open there at The bag in Los Angeles on April 22.

Florio’s work centers on the built environment, including the effect of time on buildings and landscapes. Currently, he is artist-in-residence at the Tippet Rise Art Center in Montana. The 2021 winner, the Chicago-based photographer and writer Lee Bey, will present the award to Florio.

Tweet of the day: Supertalls ≠ housing

UCLA architect and urban planning professor Kian Goh shared a very big review on Twitter today:

For real?? Supertalls are not a form of accommodation. It is a form of exorbitant structural engineering, vertical circulation technology, innovation in facade materials and global capital.

— Kian Goh (@kiangoh) April 6, 2022

Readers, do you agree?