News

Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages Shelly Glover and Minister of Foreign Affairs John Baird, along with Minister of State (Multiculturalism) Tim Uppal announced on May 12, 2014, the awarding of the National Holocaust Monument National Design Competition to the team led by Lord Cultural Resources. The National Holocaust Monument, established through the National Holocaust Monument Act by the Government of Canada, will ensure a permanent, national symbol that will honour and commemorate the victims of the Holocaust and recognize Canadian survivors. The Monument will stand in Ottawa, ON, symbolically located across from the Canadian War Museum. Lord Cultural Resources will lead the multi-disciplinary and multi-cultural team that includes architect Daniel Libeskind, Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky, Quebec-based landscape architect Claude Cormier and University of Toronto Holocaust scholar Doris Bergen.

Construction is under way on main hall of new Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) expected to open in August 2015 in Giza, Egypt. GEM will house the largest display of ancient Egyptian artefacts in the world, including treasures from the tomb of King Tutankhamun. The Museum lies on 117 acres of land (90,000 square meters) and is now in its third and final phase of construction, which began in January 2014.

The future Museum of the American Revolution (MoAR) is to be built at the corner of 3rd and Chestnut Streets in Philadelphia, PA, just steps away from Independence Hall. The building, now on the site of the former Independence National Historical Park Visitor Center built in 1976, has been closed since 2002, and ownership was transferred to MoAR in 2010 through a land exchange. Demolition on the existing building is anticipated to begin in March 2014, and construction to begin during the summer of 2014. The museum building, designed by Robert A.M. Stern Architects, is scheduled to open in late 2016. The opening salvo of the Museum of the American Revolution took place on March 5. Lord Cultural Resources provided management consulting, facility planning and public programming services for the MoAR project.

The Museum of Fine Arts Budapest and the Városliget Zrt., owned by the Hungarian State, announced an architectural competition for the design of five museum buildings within the framework of the Liget Budapest Project. The five buildings will be located within the area of City Park Budapest (Városliget). The scope of work includes: construction of the new buildings, a complete renewal of the green area of the City Park, and renovation of the institutions already present. Liget Budapest will be one of Budapest’s leading tourist and cultural destinations and a unique family park. Lordculture has been assisting Varosliget in planning of the Museum of Ethnography and the New National Gallery & Ludwig Museum – Museum of Contemporary Art.

In November 2013, Laure Colliex, Carolyne Krummenacker and Aline Mandai from Lordculture presented at the international workshop on Budapest's Liget cultural quarter planned for the City Park. Read more at www.ligetbudapest.org and www.szepmuveszeti.hu.

The Jan and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art at UC Davis, CA, broke ground on March 1, 2014 at the Robert and Margrit Mondavi Center for Performing Arts. Lord Cultural Resources developed the architectural program and advised on the design-build team selection process.

Read more at shremmuseum.ucdavis.edu or watch UC Davis' video on Art in the Making: 

The first phase of our client's project, the Witte Museum’s B. Naylor Morton Research and Collections Center, opened on March 1 in San Antonio, TX. The new B. Naylor Morton Research and Collections Center now offers permanent storage to 300,000 artifacts collected over 86 years. All objects are maintained under optimum temperature, humidity and light levels to safeguard them for future generations. Except for light-sensitive works on paper and textiles, most collection items are on constant view or in pull-out drawers enabling thousands of artifacts to be accessible to the public for the first time. The new Center includes the Orientation Gallery, San Antonio Express-News Reading Room, Peggy Walker Archives and the Texas Art Storage Gallery. Lord Cultural Resources was the exhibition designer, interpretive planner and space planner for the project.

Gail Lord, Co-President, Lord Cultural Resources, was extensively quoted in an article by YorkRegion.com on development of an Arts District in the City of Vaughan, ON. Gail Lord facilitated the Working Session of the Vaughan City Council, and led the discussion on the development of a vibrant arts and culture scene in Vaughan. Gail stressed the importance of updating the Vaughan cultural plan, which would include consultation with the public to discuss the current trends in cultural planning and the ways and means of moving forward.

Read the article: Vaughan receives expert advice on creating arts, culture hub

Every February, the United States and Canada commemorate Black History Month to honor the legacy of people of African descent, past and present. At Lord Cultural Resources, we honor these legacies every day. Just recently, the firm has been commissioned to complete a Strategic Feasibility Study for the conversion of the apartment and building where Civil Rights leader, Rosa Parks, once resided. From 1951-1957, Mrs. Parks resided at 632 Cleveland Court, a public housing community and during that time, played a pivotal role in the historically significant bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama. To appropriately commemorate and honor Mrs. Parks, the Montgomery Housing Authority, is exploring the creation of a museum or other suitable alternative use for the building.

Simultaneously, our firm is working with museum and heritage staff to commemorate the stories of people of African descent at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, DC; the National Urban League in New York; Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in New York; Black Loyalist Heritage Society and Africville in Nova Scotia.

Lord Cultural Resources has worked on a team led by Sasaki & Associates to develop a Master Plan for Fort Monroe, a recently decommissioned Army base on a site with 400 years of historical significance, just outside Hampton, Virginia. We have been developing a cultural strategy as part of the Fort Monroe master plan. The outgoing governor of Virginia, Bob McDonnell, has just signed the approval of the plan.

Read the news story here.

Lordculture participated in MAPIC, the International Market for Retail Real Estate conference, on November 14, 2013 in Cannes, France. The event gathered thousands of retailers, investors, city representatives and developers.