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Tokyo Architect Kengo Kuma Beats Out Renzo Piano and Selldorf to Design National Gallery’s £350 M. New Wing

The National Gallery in London has selected Kengo Kuma and Associates, the Tokyo-based firm known for designing the V&A Dundee in Scotland, to design its new extension as part of Project Domani, the institution’s £750 million ($995 million) campaign to transform its campus and expand its collection into the 20th and 21st centuries. Two UK-based firms, BDP and MICA, will collaborate with Kuma on the project, which is subject to ratification at the end of a standstill period ending April 16. The new wing will be built on the site of St. Vincent House, which currently houses a hotel and office complex and will be demolished as part of the expansion. The new wing, expected to open in the early 2030s, will add approximately 15,000 square feet of exhibition space, a roughly 15 percent increase, according to the Art Newspaper . The wing is expected to cost around £350 million ($464 million), with the rest of the Project Domani funds expected to go toward post-1900 acquisitions and to ...
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Swindale Shield Matchday Scoring Highlights: Round One MSP (58) v Norths (22)

Round One of the 2026 Swindale Shield came to Porirua Park where home team Northern United met Marist St Pat’s for the Maurice Standish Cup. In breezy conditions, home side Norths scored first and late led 12-7 during the first half. MSP got their noses ahead 19-12 by halftime. Early in the second half a...
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Thomas Zipp, Visionary Installation Artist With a Punk Sensibility, Has Died

Thomas Zipp, the German punk musician, painter, and installation artist with a relentlessly critical eye, has died. His gallery, Berlin’s Galerie Barbara Thumm, announced the news on social media, writing that he “passed away far too soon.” “Our thoughts and deepest sympathies are with his family,” the gallery added. “Dear Thomas Zipp, may you rest in peace.” With a zeal for immersion, Zipp reimagined site-specific art as a kind of psychological theater, filling gallery spaces worldwide with multilayered, scenographic installations. Populated by objects and emptied of people, these environments alluded to fields such as religion, medicine, politics, and history, but viewers were asked to make their own meaning from it all, with each encounter yielding a personal constellation.  Handling such weighty concepts, a less deft hand might have lapsed into melodrama. Zipp, however, remained nimble, producing an oeuvre of bizarre institutional satires underpinned by the human compu...
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Sideline Conversions 6 April (some rugby news and information to start the week)

Upper Hutt Rams celebrate a job well done, beating Poneke 66-32 in their Swindale Shield season opener. Is this the year of the Ram? Photo: Tane Nathan/Kinetic Images. The first weekend of Wellington club rugby saw seven entertaining Premier fixtures played throughout the region and the opening round of Premier 2 games. There were Premier...
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How the New Deal Treated Art as Essential to Democracy

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Imagine a world where an artist is considered an essential worker. The government commissions murals and sculptures for schools, libraries, and hospitals. Taxes fund free classes in pottery and printmaking at a community art center. The president of the United States promotes art as vital to a healthy democracy.  This world flickered into view between 1933 and 1943, a decade when the US government treated art as a public resource rather than a private luxury. The output was staggering: hundreds of thousands of artworks—murals, paintings, sculptures, prints, and photographs—by then-unknown artists like Willem de Kooning, Philip Guston, Lee Krasner, Jacob Lawrence, Alice Neel, Louise Nevelson, Isamu Noguchi, Jackson Pollock, and Mark Rothko. They belonged to the era’s bold vision of cultural democracy: art by the people, for the people. This vision rose from a nightmare: the Great Depression. By the time Franklin D. Roosevelt took office in March 1933, three and a half years after...
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Powering the North: Canada Commits Historic Investment to 5 Wing Goose Bay

In Labrador, where geography and geopolitics increasingly intersect, Canada is making one of its most consequential defence infrastructure moves to date. At 5 Wing Goose Bay, a cornerstone of northern operations, the federal government is laying the groundwork for a transformation that could reach up to $8 billion—marking the largest defence investment in Newfoundland and Labrador’s history. Announced in Happy Valley–Goose Bay, the initiative positions the base as a critical node in Canada’s evolving NORAD northern basing infrastructure (NNBI) network. As Arctic security dynamics intensify, Goose Bay is set to play an expanded role in enabling rapid deployment and sustained operations across the North. At the heart of this immediate effort is a $187 million Energy Performance Contract (EPC), awarded to MCW Custom Energy Solutions Ltd. The project will modernize the base’s Central Heating Plant, replacing legacy diesel systems with electric boilers powered by Labrador’s hydroelectric ...
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Forging Canada’s Arctic Future: Polar Max Icebreaker Construction Begins at Davie

Canada’s Arctic is no longer a distant frontier—it is a rapidly evolving strategic domain. As shipping lanes expand, climate pressures intensify, and geopolitical attention sharpens, Canada is accelerating efforts to ensure a sustained, year-round presence in the North. That urgency was on full display in Lévis, Québec, on March 31, as federal leaders and industry partners gathered at Chantier Davie Canada Inc . to mark the start of Canadian production on the Polar Max Icebreaker—one of two new polar vessels set to redefine the Canadian Coast Guard’s Arctic capabilities. A Defining Moment for Arctic Presence The production start ceremony signals more than just the beginning of construction—it marks the transition to full-rate production at Davie’s shipyard and a significant step forward in renewing Canada’s Arctic-capable fleet under the National Shipbuilding Strategy. Together with its sister vessel under construction at Vancouver Shipyards, the Polar Max Icebreaker will form the ...
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