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Barry Diller, the financier behind New York’s Little Island park, has announced a four-month annual performing arts festival to enhance the park’s cultural offerings, featuring nine premieres including new works by choreographer Twyla Tharp and an innovative adaptation of Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro by countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo. Backed by a $100 million investment over the next two decades, the festival, curated by producing artistic director Zack Winokur, will offer affordable performances in the park’s amphitheater and free shows in smaller spaces, supporting the creative community and expanding the city’s public art program.
Equinox is launching Optimize by Equinox, a premium $40,000-per-year health and longevity program, in collaboration with Function Health, which includes personal training, nutrition, sleep coaching, and massage therapy. The program integrates comprehensive biometric testing from Function Health and fitness assessments by Equinox, followed by personalized wellness plans tailored by a dedicated concierge team. This venture is part of Equinox’s strategic expansion into the health and wellness sector, aiming to blend luxury services with detailed health data to promote long-term vitality and disease prevention.
A U.S. District Court judge has issued a preliminary injunction preventing the Des Moines Art Center from demolishing Mary Miss’s Land art installation, Greenwood Pond: Double Site, despite the art center’s claim of prohibitively high restoration costs exceeding $2.6 million. The court’s ruling creates a deadlock, allowing the artwork to remain intact without obligating the art center to repair it, following a disagreement over contractual permissions for demolition or restoration. The art center is currently exploring options to resolve the impasse while maintaining public safety around the deteriorated sections of the installation, which include various architectural and landscape elements designed by Miss in 1996.
Twenty-seven individuals were arrested and later released for protesting the conflict in Gaza outside the Metropolitan Museum of Art during the Met Gala, with six receiving summonses. Amidst heightened security, the demonstration was part of a wider movement with student-led protests at several New York City colleges, including rallies that affected area businesses and institutions. The Met Gala, a major fundraising event for the Costume Institute, proceeded with enhanced security measures and no official comment from organizers regarding the protests.
The French studios Francois Brugel Architectes Associes, H2o Architectes, and Antoine Regnault Architecture have transformed two interconnected former office blocks in Paris into Ilot Saint-Germain, a social housing project featuring 254 homes, a gymnasium, and a kindergarten. The renovation preserved the original architectural elements of the 18th-century stone and 1970s concrete buildings, integrating the materials into the new additions to maintain a cohesive look and feel. The project includes communal amenities such as garden-topped concrete volumes for the gym and kindergarten, enhancing urban living with accessible rooftop spaces.
Gijs Schalkx retrofits a jalopy to run on salvaged plastic that it converts into oil.
Chase enters the airport-lounge wars with snazzy drinks and wingback chairs.
Today’s hottest iPhone app may owe its popularity to government crackdowns.
This journalist read every single thing that Elon Musk posted on X for a week.
