The Royal Academy of Arts, the world’s foremost artist and architect-led institution, will open its new campus to the public on Saturday 19 May 2018 as part of the celebrations of its 250th anniversary year. Following a transformational redevelopment, designed by internationally-acclaimed architect Sir David Chipperfield CBE RA and supported by the National Lottery, the new Royal Academy will open up and reveal more of the elements that make the RA unique – sharing with the public historic treasures from its Collection, the work of its Royal Academicians and the Royal Academy Schools, and its role as a centre for debate about art and architecture – alongside its world-class exhibitions programme. One of the key features of the redevelopment is the new Weston Bridge between Burlington House and Burlington Gardens, uniting the two-acre campus and creating a new route between Piccadilly and Mayfair. The unified

Germany has restituted nine artefacts belonging to indigenous people in Alaska after determining they were plundered from graves. The Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, which oversees museums in the German capital, said Wednesday the burial objects were brought to Berlin in 1882-1884 on commission by the then Royal Museum of Ethnology. But “everything shows today that the objects stemmed from a grave robbery and not from an approved archaeological dig,” said the foundation. The objects, including two broken masks, a cradle and a wooden idol, were handed over to a representative of the Alaska Chugach people. “The objects were taken from the graves then without the consent of the indigenous people and were therefore removed unlawfully,” said Foundation President Hermann Parzinger. “As such, they don’t belong in our museums,” he added.