Destinations

By Jan Shepherd, Globe Correspondent, 4/27/2003


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This is the year for new stages and museums. At Bard College, the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts made its debut this weekend. In February, Emory University in Atlanta celebrated the opening of the Donna and Marvin Schwartz Center for Performing Arts. San Francisco's Asian Art Museum moved into a permanent home, while the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach added the Melvin and Gail Nessel Wing. Houston welcomed its first aquarium, and Canada's Museum of Civilization opened First Peoples Hall. In Kennesaw, Ga., the Southern Museum of the Civil War and Locomotive History gave "The General" a new complex. In London, the Saatchi Gallery's modern collection transformed the city's former County Hall. Later this year, the Los Angeles Philharmonic moves to the new Walt Disney Concert Hall, and in Washington, the Smithsonian Institution opens the National Air and Space Museum Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center. For now, however, add these to a must-see list:

Cincinnati

Center for Contemporary Art

June 7
The 64-year-old Contemporary Arts Center is a non-collecting institution, yet it now has a place of its own, a $20 million, freestanding building in the heart of downtown. In her first US project, London architect Zaha Hadid blurs the line between interiors and exteriors in the street-level glass facade of the six-story building. The first exhibit at the Lois & Richard Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art is "Somewhere Better Than This Place: Alternative Social Experience in the Spaces of Contemporary Art," 67 newly commissioned and extant works by 39 US and international film, installation, photography, video, audio, and live performance artists. It's up through Nov. 9. CAC made waves nationally in 1990 when it won a free speech case in order to show Robert Mapplethorpe photographs. 44 E. 6th St. at Walnut Street. 513-721-0390. www.contemporaryartscenter.org.

Tacoma, Wash.

Museum made modern

May 3
Adding another jewel to the waterfront Cultural District, the Tacoma Art Museum starts life in new digs on the same day it closes the existing building. The doors will open on a 24-hour nonstop public fete with bed races, bands, yoga, art making, and architectural tours beginning at 8 p.m. on May 3. Albuquerque architect Antoine Predock drew inspiration for the $22 million modern complex from the city's industrial heritage, Northwest light, and Mount Rainier. The inaugural exhibits include Dale Chihuly's first glass garden landscape, "Mille Fiori"; "Northwest Mythologies: The Interactions of Mark Tobey, Morris Graves, Kenneth Callahan, and Guy Anderson"; and "Building Tradition: Gifts in Honor of the Northwest Art Collection." 1701 Pacific Ave. 253-272-4258. www.tacomaartmuseum.org.

Baltimore

Fells Point Maritime Museum

June 21
More people may know Fells Point from TV's "Homicide: Life on the Street," yet the 19th-century neighborhood's history is more interesting than as a backdrop for police dramas. Designated as Maryland's first National Historic District, the eight-square-block peninsula was the center of the city's 19th-century shipbuilding industry when the famous Baltimore clipper schooner sailed around the world. The stories of that era's people and places are the focus of the new museum, a joint effort by the Maryland Historical Society and Society for the Preservation of Federal Hill and Fells Point. 1724 Thames St. 410-732-0278. www.mdhs.org.

Seattle

McCaw Hall

June 29
The Seattle Opera and the Northwest Pacific Ballet are the top-drawer resident companies in the $125 million Marion Oliver McCaw Hall at the Seattle Center. Built on the foundation of an original 1928 civic auditorium, the five-story building is a study in geometry and dynamic exteriors and interiors. The venue, which also will be the home of festivals such as Bumbershoot and NW Folklife, has a 2,890-seat auditorium, a 388-seat lecture hall, and a spacious outdoor plaza. Marion Oliver McCaw Hall, 321 Mercer St. 206-684-8582 (24-hour events line). www.seattlecenter.com.

Beacon, N.Y.

Dia:Beacon

May 18
Super-sized pioneering art from the 1960s to the present finally comes out of storage and into a permanent home in the world's largest museum for contemporary art. The Dia Art Foundation has long collected the artists who gave the world minimalism, post-minimalism, conceptualism, earth art, and video, yet it never had a space large enough for the monumental pieces. That's no longer the case since artist Robert Irwin and architect OpenOffice transformed a 240,000-square-foot industrial complex of three buildings and a train shed in which each of 25 artists has his or her own gallery. Among them are Joseph Beuys, John Chamberlain, Imi Knoebel, Sol LeWitt, Agnes Martin, Andy Warhol, Donald Judd, Louise Bourgeois, Hanne Darbove, and Dan Flavin. The 70-acre site is about 80 minutes north of New York City. 3 Beekman St. 845-440-0100. www.diaart.org.

Dubuque, Iowa

Mississippi River aquarium

June 28
The port city jazzes up the Mississippi River waterfront with the $188 million America's River entertainment and tourist complex. As part of the historic and educational component, the National Mississippi River Museum premieres the William Woodward Discovery Center, the nation's first aquarium devoted exclusively to the world's third-largest river. Among the aquarium wildlife from the 2,400-mile ecosystem are alligators, otters, turtles, fish, and snakes. The aquarium is owned by the Dubuque County Historical Society's River Museum. Aquarium architect is Esherick Homsey Dodge & Davis of San Francisco, while exhibits are by Lyons/Saremba of Boston. At Port of Dubuque complex. 800-226-3369. www.rivermuseum.com.

Berlin

Museum addition

May 25
Museum architecture master I.M. Pei has applied his vision to the $47 million addition to Zeughaus, the German Historical Museum. The original Baroque building has been closed since 1998 for renovation and reopens next year. In the meantime, Berliners celebrate the debut of Pei's round glass tower with the interior's free-standing spiraling stairway. A glass hall connects the new wing to the old building when it reopens. The wing's galleries house changing exhibits beginning with what turns out to be timely, "Idea Europe: Concept for Eternal Peace" (through Aug. 24). Unter den Linden 2. 49-(0)-30-20-30-40. www.dhm.de.

Destinations is a weekly feature on events and places around the country and the world. Write us at Destinations, Sunday Travel, Boston Globe, PO Box 2378, Boston, MA 02107-2378, or e-mail to travel@globe.com.