What’s Happening: After the Des Moines Art Center revealed plans to demolish a key Land Art installation by Mary Miss, the environmental artist is exploring options to save her work.

The Download: No artist wants to hear their work has fallen into disrepair, but that is exactly the news Mary Miss received this past October. The pioneering land artist’s environmental installation Greenwood Pond: Double Site (1996), located at the Des Moines Art Center and considered the country’s first urban wetland project, would soon close to the public because its dilapidated components were severely weathered from the elements and at risk of collapsing. Six weeks later, director Kelly Baum estimated the repair costs would spiral to $2.7 million, and decided to dismantle the artwork entirely.

Despite an outcry, the institution intended to proceed with demolition plans. That was until Miss filed a lawsuit this past week seeking to prevent the museum from dismantling the work, which features boardwalk paths leading visitors up and down ramps around the edge of a quaint lagoon flanked with architectural follies. In her complaint, Miss alleges the museum is violating the Visual Arts Rights Act of 1990, which grants artists the right to prevent the destruction of works with recognized stature. A federal judge granted Miss a temporary restraining order, which the museum acknowledged with an announcement that it would pause demolition work and temporarily fence off the more dangerous sections.

The legal kerfuffle is shedding light on the challenges of preserving public art in a time of dwindling institutional resources. Leigh Arnold, a curator at the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas, which recently held a landmark exhibition about women in Land Art that featured Miss, also pointed to a “set it and forget it” attitude when it comes to valuing site-specific works. Still, the museum’s 1994 contract with Miss included a pledge to “reasonably protect and maintain the project against the ravages of time, vandalism, and the elements”—a promise it may ultimately break.

In Their Own Words: “Landscape architecture is treated as a second- or third-class citizen,” Charles Birnbaum, director of the Cultural Landscape Foundation, which is rallying support against the work’s destruction, told the New York Times. “Sometimes it comes from a lack of institutional memory—cultural amnesia for what they had.”

Surface Says: Miss dedicated her career to spreading awareness of environmental issues through experiencing the ecology around us, but now her work seems to have taken on an even greater weight: shedding light on the meager solutions to preserving expensive Land Art.

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Marylebone’s latest neighborhood bistro has thrown open its doors showcasing the vision of chef Luke Ahearne, whose career arc has swung from the cozy cafés of Clonmel, Ireland, to London’s high dining echelons. Lita champions a seasonally shifting menu that nods to southern Europe’s culinary heritage, orchestrated around the primal allure of open-fire cooking.

Local studio B3 Designers permeated the space with familial warmth: earthy tones, terracotta tiles, and exposed wooden beams. Restored antique furniture from Guillerme et Chambron adds a touch of vintage, while the vibrant mohair and marble textures at the bar set introduce an edge of sophistication. The heart of the venue is the kitchen, where Ahearne prepares everything from Hereford beef tartare with Amalfi lemon to Cornish turbot, underpinned by a wine list spanning small, biodynamic vineyards to renowned European labels.

A historic building in the heart of Berlin that once housed a department store and the famous Kunsthaus Tacheles artists’ squat has been transformed into the latest outpost of Fotografiska, the photography museum with locations in New York, Shanghai, Tallinn, and Stockholm. With a renovation undertaken by local firm Studio Aisslinger, the seven-floor structure feels more akin to a members’ club than a traditional museum thanks to amenities like the fourth-floor Verōnika restaurant as well as two bars, a cafe, bakery, shop, and ballroom. “It’s a complex cosmos that reminds one of a large hotel, only with exhibitions rather than overnight stays,” says firm founder Werner Aisslinger, who aimed to devise interiors that wove together the building’s variegated, era-spanning layers.

The building first opened in 1909 as the Friedrichstrasse Passage before being repurposed several times, including into headquarters for the Nazi regime’s German Labour Front and then a post-reunification symbol as home to the Kunsthaus Tacheles, which saw it filled with large-scale graffiti that’s now protected by preservation orders. Aisslinger’s interventions respect the balance between old and new, tempering the building’s historic substance with high-end finishes like velvet banquette seating and framed photography strewn throughout the public spaces. Despite criticism about the privatization of a structure rooted in the city’s underground creative scene, Aisslinger envisions Fotografiska as a continuation of the building’s social legacy, aiming to foster a future-focused yet historically aware cultural hub for all Berliners.

When: April 13–Oct. 13

Where: Lindau Art Museum, Germany

What: Created in collaboration with the Christo and Jeanne-Claude Foundation, the late duo’s lifelong path toward realizing larger-than-life temporary projects is getting the spotlight. Through artistic drawings, detailed collages, and early objects, the show illustrates how the duo pulled off their boldest dreams: wrapping the Reichstag in Germany, stretching a giant curtain between two mountains in Colorado, and allowing hundreds of thousands of people to walk across Lake Iseo in Italy.

Brendan Ravenhill’s Slide range is an industry favorite for a reason: its cloth-covered shade softly diffuses light and its conical shape imparts intrigue. The new floor lamp silhouette—a first for the studio—is anchored by a warm white concrete base, while polished brass hardware captures an effortless, goes-with-everything ease. It’s the platonic ideal of accent lighting. From $2,200

Cultus Artem features three collections: fragrance, skincare, and one-of-a-kind fine jewelry, all of which are made by hand in the company’s San Antonio atelier. Across its divisions, Cultus Artem explores traditional, labor-intensive techniques using precious materials rarely used in the beauty and jewelry spheres.

Surface Says: From premium packaging to the bespoke formulations within, a deep appreciation for beautifying rituals underscores Cultus Artem’s approach to skincare and fragrance. Their fine jewelry makes a fitting last step in any routine.

Mattel is launching a less intimidating, more collaborative edition of Scrabble.

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The art collective MSCHF secretly replaced an entire sink at the Met.