June 09, 2008
It could have been the San Francisco Sex and the City premiere party. Last Saturday night, over 1,000 people were turned away at the door, while 3,000 made it in, decked out in decidedly more flashy outfits than typical for the fleece-and-crocs locale. It was the grand opening of the new Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco, and a celebration of the holiday Shavuot rolled into an all-night cultural arts festival called DAWN. The $47.5 million building (designed by Daniel Libeskind as an addition to a brick, circa-1907 power company substation) opens onto a new public plaza across the street from the Yerba Buena Gardens, just a block away from the SF Musem of Modern Art.


In Paris, the answer to every civic problem might actually be: more fashion! Indeed, anchoring the Docks de Paris project revival of a downtrodden Left Bank industrial site along the quai D'Austerlitz, La Cite de la Mode et du Design is set to be the capital's fourth museum dedicated to matters sartorial. As the name indicates, this one will also address a broader spectrum of design, and up the fab factor by incorporating designer boutiques and a chic rooftop restaurant from the people behind Georges, the Pompidou's futuristic eatery in the sky.