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After more than 20 years, the Standard Hotel in West Hollywood permanently closes.
The Standard Hotel, a mainstay destination on the Sunset Strip, has closed after 22 years. Formerly owned by the hotelier André Balazs, who also owns the nearby Chateau Marmont, the Standard embraced showbusiness with interiors created by the film set designer Shawn Hausman. It also became a celebrity favorite thanks to larger-than-life parties and early financial support from Leonardo DiCaprio, Cameron Diaz, and Benicio Del Toro. “Despite 22 years of unconditional love for our hotel, our guests, our team, and our community, the hotel was unable to prevent a significant increase to its lease, which makes operating the property impossible,” the hotel posted on Instagram. “Alive with personality and personalities, and the backdrop of countless legendary tales, Hollywood was the birthplace of The Standard’s culture. While there are and will be more Standard hotels, there will never be another Standard, Hollywood. And though it’s painful to say goodbye, we know that the community we inspired will live on.” It’s unclear whether the closure will impact the hotel’s other locations in Downtown Los Angeles, Miami, and New York.
Gagosian names the critic and author Antwaun Sargent as its new director and curator.
After spending a decade as a writer published by The New Yorker, the New York Times, and Surface, Antwaun Sargent will join Gagosian as director and curator. In his new role, Sargent will create exhibitions, contribute to Gagosian Quarterly, and organize panel discussions. The 32-year-old critic aims to work with artists tackling identity, desire, and representation, as well as rethinking mediums such as photography and painting. He also wants to make sure that artists of color are represented within the gallery. “I’ve always been interested in the ways in which we can reframe the conversation around some of the voices that have been left out,” Sargent tells The New York Times. “I’m also interested in notions of community and how artists work within communities and how works are informed by their links to community.” His first exhibition is planned for the gallery’s outpost in Chelsea, New York, later this year.
A pair of residential towers designed by Heatherwick Studio for Vancouver's West End…
Heatherwick Studio shares visuals for a pair of twisting residential towers in Vancouver.
Heatherwick Studio has unveiled visuals for a pair of twisting residential towers in Vancouver’s bustling West End neighborhood. Jointly commissioned by Bosa Properties and Kingswood Properties, the two arboreal-inspired towers will replace two 1980s-era apartment towers near Stanley Park and Vancouver Harbour. “The concept aims to bring a new level of global design excellence to Vancouver,” the firm said about the towers, which will stand 30 and 34 stories high and include 401 condominium units. Each features a twisting timber, glass, and concrete construction, and will be connected by a foliage-filled five-story podium equipped with shops, restaurants, and other public amenities. “It’s difficult to have a positive emotional connection with a huge, flat building,” the firm continues. “Too often towers are monolithic and cut off from the street life, which is the lifeblood of the West End. Our aim was to create towers that intersect with the ground level at a human scale, inviting interaction with the wider city community.” A construction timeline for the project has yet to be finalized.
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art weighs a name change due to its founder’s racist legacy.
The Kansas City Star recently launched an investigation into its founder, the real estate and newspaper magnate William Rockhill Nelson, to examine the newspaper’s own history and past coverage of racial inequities. The series unearthed that Nelson helped create and enforce segregation through restrictive covenants that dictated only white people could live in the homes he built, leading to decades of racial inequality in the city’s housing market. With that new knowledge, the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art—named after Nelson—is reassessing its name. “Our board of trustees, and museum leadership, are taking a careful look at the museum’s history,” Kathleen Leighton, the museum’s manager of media relations and video production, told ArtNet News. “These complex issues take time and thoughtful consideration.” The museum, which has supported Black Lives Matter, has yet to reach a decision.
Demolition is underway at Paul Rudolph’s brutalist Burroughs Welcome Building.
Despite multiple calls to protect Paul Rudolph’s Burroughs Wellcome Building in North Carolina, demolition of the 1970s Brutalist landmark has been well underway for several months. More than 5,800 people signed an online petition organized by the Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation to convince the building’s owner, United Therapeutics, to stop demolition work because of its architectural and historic significance. The company, which had already obtained a demolition permit when the petition was launched, concluded the building was “unsafe, not environmentally sound, and functionally obsolete.” The building became famous not only for its polarizing Brutalist appearance, but as a place where scientists pioneered the use of drugs to prolong the lives of HIV patients; it was renamed after the research chemists Gertrude Elion and George Hitchings after they received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1988. Plans for a replacement have yet to be announced, but United Therapeutics says it will memorialize the legacies of Elion, Hitchings, and Rudolph—the new building will be named after the two scientists and will feature a Paul Rudolph foyer.
