TIME Magazine Names the Shed and a Damien Hirst-Designed Las Vegas Hotel Suite as Among the World’s ‘Greatest Places’

TIME
magazine released its second annual list of the World’s Greatest
Places today—a
globe-spanning collection of 100 new or newly-relevant museums,
parks, restaurants, hotels, and other destinations.

To formulate the list,
TIME gathered nominations from staff members, writers, and
”industry professionals,” before then winnowing down a list of
locations based on factors like “quality, originality, sustainability,
innovation, and influence,” according to an explanation accompanying the
feature.

“How does one measure the
greatness of a place—in miles covered, dollars spent, or visitors
captivated?”, the methodology reads. “Such metrics can play a part,
but also important is something that many travelers aspire to
experience: the sense that one has stumbled upon the
extraordinary.”

The resulting index of Greatest
Places brings together its fair share of classics and also a few
out-and-out head-scratchers. 

This spectrum is well represented
in the jumble of art-adjacent choices that checker the list.
Definite highlights include the V&A
Dundee in Scotland,
the National Museum of
Qatar in Doha, and
the Helsinki Central
Library Oodi—all of which
are considered to be world-class institutions.

The Fábrica de Arte
Cubano, a charming
cultural center located in a former cooking-oil factory in Havana,
is a nice surprise, as is the Museum of Black
Civilizations in Dakar,
Senegal. Both represent welcome counterpoints to the big-budget
glass-and-steel behemoths that usually place on lists like
these. 

Tokyo’s Mori Building
Digital Art Museum, the
first such institution to focus solely on art of the ones and zeros
variety, has been a huge hit since it debuted in June of 2018. As
such, it very much seems to deserve its spot on a Greatest Places
list. So does Ruby
City, San Antonio’s new
museum designed by David Adjaye (though it doesn’t open until
October, so it’s hard to give final judgment yet).

One of the newest inclusions on
the TIME
list is The Shed,
the hybrid multi-use art space
designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro that debuted in
April in New York. The magazine praises the non-profit institution
for providing New Yorkers with experimental art at an affordable
price, though it also describes the surrounding Hudson Yards
development is also referred to as a “symbol of wealth inequality
in a city where rising rents can price out low-income residents,”
which would seem to push it over into Not-So-Great-Place
territory.

It also seems an odd choice for Greatest Place in that its
theatrical attractions mashing together different genres, so far,
have received middling
to breath-takingly negative reviews. The venue has
mainly been in the news lately as New York Fashion Week
participants boycott it over
developer Stephen Ross’s fundraising efforts on behalf of president
Donald Trump.

Also making TIME‘s
“Greatest Places” cut is the Damien Hirst-designed Empathy
Suite at the Palms Casino
Resort in Las Vegas. The 9,000-square-foot, two-story suite comes
with a cantilevered swimming pool, a Himalayan salt room, 24-hour
butler service, and a selection of Hirst’s own artwork to bask in.
Two nights at Hirst’s hotel room will run you a stunning
$200,000. (Did someone mention the words “symbol of wealth
inequality”?)

Meanwhile, another odd choice for
the Greatest Places is the Newseum
in Washington, D.C., which has been
around for 11 years but announced in January that it would be
closing by the end of the year. “Some places you see because
they’re new,” Time philosophizes, “others you visit before
they’re gone. “

The post TIME Magazine Names the Shed and a Damien
Hirst-Designed Las Vegas Hotel Suite as Among the World’s ‘Greatest
Places’ appeared first on artnet News.