The Iraqi National Museum has reclaimed 701 artefacts that were stolen during looting in the aftermath of the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003. The news was covered by media from around the world:

Stolen treasures returned to Iraq’s museum (People’s Daily Online, 29 Apr 2008)

Treasures returned to Iraq museum (Kazinform, 28 Apr 2008)

Stolen treasures returned to Iraq’s museum (Sydney Morning Herald, 28 Apr 2008)

Iraqi museum receives 701 artifacts stolen during looting (Aljazeera.com, 27 Apr 2008)

Treasures returned to Iraq museum (BBC, 27 Apr 2008)

Iraqi National Museum receives 701 artifacts stolen in wake of Saddam Hussein’s ouster (International Herald Tribune, 27 Apr 2008)

Baghdad museum receives artifacts stolen from Iraq (Washington Post, 27 Apr 2008)

Read more Baghdad Museum news (The Baghdad Museum Project)

Tel Aviv’s new Bauhaus Museum is located in the White City, a collection of 1930s-era International Style buildings designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2003.

Tel Aviv’s “White City,” an unparalleled collection of 4,000 International Style buildings, now has a Bauhaus Museum to display Bauhaus-designed furnishings and related objects. The museum is appropriately located, in an International Style building. The first exhibition, which opened April 25, includes original furniture, graphics, lamps, and glass and ceramic ware, by Mies van der Rohe, Marcel Breuer, Christian Bell, Wilhelm Wagenfeld, and others.

It was because of the “White City” that Tel Aviv was added to the list of 56 historical cities in the world in 2003, and became one of the few modern cities to be declared a world heritage site by UNESCO. The maverick architects and designers of the city could not have imagined that their application of the revolutionary Bauhaus style of architecture would eventually make Tel Aviv the largest open-air Bauhaus museum in the world.

It appears that the Bauhaus Museum in Tel Aviv has no website of its own, but the City of Tel Aviv-Jaffa maintains a website with a lot of good information and photos. Moreover, there is currently an exhibition on view about the White City, at the Architekturzentrum Wien (Austria). Read more about the museum on the website of Architectural Record.

Japanese architect Tadao Ando has studied the relationship between the graves and Saar city and came up with a geometrical shape for the new museum, which will open in 2010.

After Dubai and Abu Dhabi, yet another Gulf State is making efforts to become a cultural hub for the region. This time Bahrain, a borderless island country in the Persian Gulfstate of the coast from Saudi Arabia, announced plans for a -of-the-art museum and research centre to be built at a 5000-years old archaeological site in Saar. Conceptual designs have been completed and building work is expected to begin by the end of this year. The designs, sponsored by Durrat Al Bahrain, have been created by Japanese architect Tadao Ando. His design integrates the surrounding area with the building itself. It will be a rectangle divided into two triangles, the larger one for the museum and the smaller for the research centre.

Reports that burial mounds in A’ali were to be removed at night by a construction company have been dismissed by government officials. One MP already had launched a committee to look into allegations that burial mounds were to be removed to give way to development projects. He had reportedly been tipped off by an anonymous caller and was taking the claims seriously by setting up a committee to probe the issue. “The graves won’t be moved, it’s the wrong information and a huge mistake,” said Shaikha Mai, the assistant under-secretary for Culture and National Heritage.

Read more (Gulf Daily News, January 1, 2008)

Museum director Amira Edan gives US Army Lt Col Kenneth Crawford, commander of the 2nd Brigade Special Troops Battalion, a tour of the galleries. Photo: Sgt First Class Kap Kim, USA

Nearly five years after the museum was ransacked, two main galleries should go on view this month; funding has come from Italy.

The National Museum of Iraq in Baghdad is due to reopen at the end of December, nearly five years after the looting. Italian officials assisting the Iraqis told The Art Newspaper that work on two main galleries has now been completed. “Barring any last minute security emergencies, the museum will reopen in December,” says Roberto Parapetti, of the Turin-based Centro Ricerche Archeologiche e Scavi.

The two galleries which are set to reopen, with Assyrian and Islamic antiquities, contain large and almost immovable objects. This means that the security risks are lower than with smaller items in glass cases. The rooms are on the ground floor, near the main entrance, and lie on either side of the central courtyard.

Read full article (The Art Newspaper, November 25, 2007)
The Iraq Museum
The Iraq Museum on Wikipedia
Read Iraq and ruin (Guardian, May 2, 2003)

Model for Guggenheim branch in Abu Dhabi, designed by Frank Gehry

The Guggenheim Foundation has embarked on its most ambitious outpost yet: a 300,000 sq ft modern art museum designed by Frank Gehry on an island off the coast of Abu Dhabi. Construction has not started, but the Persian Gulf nation has a “systemic” worker abuse problem at other construction sites in the booming region, Human Rights Watch spokeswoman Sarah Leah Whitson said Tuesday.

According to the human rights organization, the Guggenheim museum officials have not addressed concerns about how workers would be treated during the construction. “We know how construction workers are used and abused in the U.A.E.,” the spokeswoman said. “We know with confidence that workers are going to be subjected to these conditions unless the museum does something to insist otherwise.” “The museum has the chance now, but they will be powerless to stop it once the contracts are signed,” she said.

Read article (International Herald Tribune/AP, November 13, 2007)
Read article (Human Rights Watch, July 19 2007)
Read article ‘Guggenheim to build museum in Abu Dhabi’ (Guardian, July 10, 2006)