The Independent Newspaper Top Ten cultural hotspots!

Ten top...cultural hotspots - Margate and Hastings No. 3 and 4 after Miami and St Petersburg!

Sunday, 6 March 2011

1 Miami

A visit to the Frank Gehry New World Center (nws.edu) will be as much about admiring Gehry's architecture as the music made within.

2 St Petersburg

Over on the west coast of Florida, the new Dali Museum (thedali.org) offers more room to display the 2,000-plus art works kept in the city.

3 Margate

The Turner Contemporary (turnercontemporary.org), a new gallery for contemporary visual arts opening this spring, is set on the site where Turner stayed during his frequent visits.

4 Hastings

Further along the south coast, the Jerwood Gallery will showcase the Jerwood Foundation's formidable collection of 20th- and 21st century art opening late autumn 2011.

5 Tallinn

One of the 2011 European Capitals of Culture, the Estonian capital is wooing visitors with its new maritime museum at Lennusadam Harbour (mere muuseum.ee), with exhibits housed in huge seaplane hangars.

6 Turku

This Finnish city is the other 2011 European Capital of Culture. Logomo (logomo.fi), an old engineering works now filled with theatres, exhibition halls, and concert venues, is just one reason to visit.

7 Helsinki

Not to be outdone, the Finnish capital is about to open a new Music Hall (musiikkitalo.fi) to the delight of musicians worldwide – largely because they hope it will improve on the poor acoustics in Alvar Alto's Finlandia Hall.

8 Antwerp

The new Museum aan de Stroom, aka MAS (mas.be), on Antwerp's waterfront, will open in May, a new home for the city's Ethnographic, National Shipping and Folklore Museums.

9 Stratford-upon-Avon

The Royal Shakespeare Theatre (rsc.org.uk) has put the audience nearer to the action in its new 1,000-seat thrust stage auditorium.

10 Bristol

The south-west city has created M Shed (mshed.org) in an old transit shed on the wharf, in which to tell its story, from prehistoric times to now. 

http://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/ten-topcultural-hotspots-2233435.html