We’ve just learned that the latest addition to Mattel’s never-ending “Barbie” line is an architect version! Complete with hard hat, and carrying a case for her latest designs, the stylish doll arrives with a tiny model dream home for her presentations, and sports de rigeur fashionable black-framed glasses, wearing a dress decorated with a city skyline. Although Barbie has generated much controversy during her 50+ years of existence, we’ll give Mattel kudos here for encouraging kids to think beyond “superstar” or model as career choices.

For the grown-ups on your holiday list, may we recommend that ARTExpress is the perfect gift for the art and architecture enthusiasts in your life—it’s a gift that keeps giving all year long–and beyond. Give us your gift list, and we’ll do the rest! (Be sure to contact us by December 20th, if you need your gift to arrive by December 25th.)

L.A. is taking its rightful place as the designated arts destination this year — and into the foreseeable future — with Pacific Standard Time, a celebration of the Los Angeles arts scene from 1945 through 1980, involving over 60 cultural institutions throughout the city and beyond. The party stretches all the way from Santa Barbara down to San Diego!

To see what’s happening, visit the official website: pacificstandardtime.org. You can experience everything from the rise of printmaking in SoCal (Norton Simon Museum), to the amazing life history and work of the iconic Beatrice Wood (Santa Monica Museum).

In our next issue, ARTExpress will focus on Los Angeles and the SoCal scene, so as you visit and re-visit these fabulous exhibitions and events you’ll be up-to-the-minute on where best to dine, stay, shop, and more . . . Stay tuned!

Two projects — one in the planning stage, one recently completed — demonstrate that starchitects are not above taking on projects that might seem improbable to the casual fan of art and design, given their usual high-profile gigs.

The one Canada is excited about is, of all things, an ice-fishing warming hut! Now that you’ve seen Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim in Bilbao, and enjoyed a concert or two at his famed Disney Hall, it’s time to grab your fishing gear and set out for Winnipeg. After an open call for submissions was announced this month, Gehry threw his hat into the ring, and will now join four others in designing $10,000 shacks for Warming Huts v.2012: An Art + Architecture Competition on Ice, organized by Manitoba’s Forks North Portage Partnership. Each team will consist of architects and/or landscape architects who will be paired with an artist. (Don’t forget your down parka!)

Another amazing new project sits quietly tucked in the French countryside, below Le Corbusier’s famous chapel at Ronchamp. It’s Renzo Piano’s new convent, created for the Poor Clare Sisters, and it was a long fought, controversial addition to the landscape. The beautiful result is respectful of both the environment and Le Corbusier’s national monument.

In our last bulletin, we sent you to Edinburgh . . . how about a stop on the way to take in a concert in Reykjavik, Iceland?  The gorgeous, so-new-it’s-just-opened Harpa Concert Hall and Conference Center is well worth the layover.

Serving as the new home base for the Iceland Symphony Orchestra and the Icelandic Opera, Harpa’s upcoming schedule also accommodates everything from a special Björk performance, to a q&a with filmmaker Kevin Smith.  Its award-winning design (World Architecture Community)  features a multi-faceted glass facade, which is not only stunningly beautiful, but also provides plenty of natural interior lighting by day; at night, a system of LED lights makes the whole thing positively glow.  Designed by Henning Larsen Architects (with renowned artist Olafur Eliasson and Artec), the building is drawing so many visitors — above and beyond the performing arts crowd — that reservations at upscale on-site restaurant Kolabrautin are already hard to come by.  And keep in mind that this is all just leading up to the gala opening which was unfolding, literally, as we were writing this — on August 20th!

The famed Edinburgh Festival is on, as of this writing (August 5) and runs through the next three weeks, offering some of the best opera, music, theatre, dance and visual arts on the planet.  Visit the festival’s website to check it out.

If your travel itinerary is a bit later than August, not to fear — there’s still plenty to see here, including the spectacularly renovated National Museum (47-million pounds worth of work, by the way).  The Victorian building, originally designed in the flamboyant style of the Crystal Palace, was given a thorough makeover by Scottish architect Gareth Hoskins, with acclaimed exhibition designer Ralph Appelbaum.  The stunning centerpiece is the Grand Gallery, four-stories high, with over 800 animal artifacts — suspended from wires and flying over visitors’ heads!  It’s dizzying fun hovering over a grounded, life-size cast of a Tyrannosaurus Rex, and it’s Britain’s single largest museum installation, for now.

Three other hot tips for cool Edinburgh: First, catch new sculpture (plus drawings) by Tony Cragg at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, through November 6.  Also, as you’re out sight-seeing, be sure to look down — especially if you’re near Waverly Station and climbing the “Scotsman Steps” — they’ve been given an artistic makeover in time for the Festival.  Italian artist Martin Creed (commissioned by the Fruitmarket Gallery) has transformed the once dingy stairs with layers of gorgeous marble of varying tints.  Work No. 1059, as it’s called, is being singled out as one of the standout “exhibitions” in town.  Finally, be sure to visit Inverleith House, at the Royal Botanic Garden.  On view now: Robert Rauschenberg: Botanic Vaudeville, and, outdoors, find Thomas Houseago: The Beat of the Show (large scale outdoor sculpture).

The world lost a giant of American painting with the recent passing of Cy Twombly.  We love the (ca. 1950s) photos on his bio website, taken by none other than his good friend Robert Rauschenberg.  Also be sure to read, if you haven’t already, the full obituary that originally appeared on the front page of The New York Times.

His own beautiful, painterly (did we expect anything else?) photographs can currently be seen on exhibit at the Lambert Collection in Avignon, France and, of course, in Houston; check out the Menil Collection’s gallery.  Designed by Renzo Piano, this amazing Menil “warehouse” is devoted solely to Twombly’s work.

With seemingly nothing but bad news coming out of Greece these days, we thought it was time to celebrate a major cultural project that looks to be moving forward in Athens.  The design of the Stavros Niarchos Cultural Center slated to be built on 42 acres of the new waterfront Stavros Niarchos Park in the southern part of the city.  Plans include a theater for the Greek National Opera, a smaller performance space, and a large library space to accommodate over two million books of the National Library.  Starchitect Renzo Piano first produced renderings for the site in 2009, and it looks like the final plan retains most of his original major concepts. Those worried about the economic feasibility of the plan should know that the Center is being built with private funds, although it will eventually become the property of the Greek government.

It will be if Alice Walton — daughter of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton — has her way.  Visitors to Bentonville, Arkansas (pop. 35,000) will soon be treated to 600 important works by American artists, to be housed at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, designed by much-feted architect Moshe Safdie.  Square footage is 201,000, and the building’s setting is a woodland park with trails that lead to town.  The collection is said to be growing as you read this, with an emphasis on 19th- & 20th-century work.  Opening day is November 11th of this year, so keep your eye on Bentonville in the fall . . . .

Don’t know where you are right now, but where we are, the tulips are in full bloom.  Meanwhile, in front of the U.S. Embassy, Beijing, Tulips by Jeff Koons is currently installed as part of the Embassy’s collection of works by American, Chinese, and Chinese-American artists.  The write-up on the U.S. State Department’s website is a bit confusing (they say the work is both “on loan” and “part of the permanent collection”), but we applaud the fact that the State Department is installing monumental art as part of its mission!

Now back to tulip picking . . . Happy Spring Travels to all.

The fourth temporary Monumenta installation in the massive — nearly 145,000 square feet — nave of the Grand Palais in Paris debuts next week and this year’s artist is one of our favorites, Anish Kapoor. Although he’s known for his large-scale works, such as the famed Cloud Gate in Millennium Park (see our Chicago issue), Kapoor usually sticks to working with solid, mostly metal, materials. His Monumenta installation, however will be four huge PVC orbs that will be inflated until they take up the entire Palais space under the great skylight. Catch it while you can: May 11th through June 23rd. More info at Monumenta’s website.