The North East eagerly awaits the opening of a major new art gallery in November 2006. Middlesbrough’s outstanding collections of fine art, jewellery and ceramics are due to be rehoused in the £19.2 million Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art (mima). These include over a thousand paintings, drawings, prints, photographs and sculpture by internationally famous modern artists like Ben Nicholson, L S Lowry, Stanley Spencer and David Hockney. Mima will also host an exciting programme of temporary exhibitions representing aspects of art from 1900 onwards. The iconic glass-walled building designed by Erick van Egeraat Associated Architects stands in the town centre between the Carnegie Library and the Victorian town hall. It presides over a newly created public space of lawns and water-jet fountains said to be the largest civic square in Europe.

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