TIME Magazine Names the Shed and Damien Hirst’s Las Vegas Hotel Room as Among the ‘Greatest Places’ in the World

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. Among the
cultural institutions to make the cut: the V&A Dundee in Scotland,
the Museum of Black Civilizations in Senegal, and…
a $200,000-a-weekend Vegas
hotel suite designed by Damien Hirst. 

To formulate the list,
TIME gathered nominations from staff members, writers, and
”industry professionals,” before 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 muses. “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 actually “extraordinary”
classics and also a few out-and-out
head-scratchers. 

Highlights of the art spaces
included range from the
spectacular, like Jean Nouvel-designed National Museum of
Qatar in Doha, to the
civic-minded, like the Helsinki Central
Library Oodi, both opened in the last year. The Fábrica de Arte Cubano, a charming cultural
center located in a former cooking-oil factory in Havana, is a nice
surprise.

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. Ruby
City, San Antonio’s new
museum designed by David Adjaye, doesn’t open until October, so
it’s hard to give final judgment yet, but it certainly seems
potentially extraordinary at the least.

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 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.

The Shed also seems an odd choice for Greatest Place in that its
theatrical attractions mashing together different genres, so far,
have received mixed to breath-takingly negative reviews. The venue has
mainly been in the news lately as New York Fashion Week
participants boycott it over Hudson
Yards 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 an
extraordinary $200,000. (Did someone mention the words
“symbol of wealth inequality”?)

Finally, another odd choice for
the Greatest Places is the Newseum
in Washington, DC, 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 Damien Hirst’s Las
Vegas Hotel Room as Among the ‘Greatest Places’ in the World
appeared first on artnet News.