People generally have one question for architects Tod Williams and Billie Tsien when they find out the duo designed the new Obama Presidential Center in Chicago: How involved was the 44th president in the project?

‘We joke that Barack was one of those clients that comes in and says, ‘If I weren’t a ______, I’d be an architect.’ Which is always a little problematic when you are an architect,” laughs Tsien

In fact, the former president has spoken several times about architecture as a youthful ambition. No surprise then, “[His] was a very dynamic and very interesting involvement,’ Tsien says.

The engagement of both the former President and First Lady Michelle Obama is evident throughout the site, which formally opens on Juneteenth (19 June, a holiday commemorating the end of slavery in the US), nearly a decade after Williams and Tsien won a competition to design the centre. Barack pushed for boldness, at one point invoking Constantin Brancusi; Michelle kept returning to the word ‘fun.’

From the outset, the architects, who were awarded the National Medal of Arts by President Obama in 2013, framed the project around the values of ennobling and enabling. The first represented a landmark worthy of the nation’s first Black president; the second reflected Barack’s years empowering residents as a community organiser on Chicago’s South Side.

‘We’ve always thought very much about not trying to just make a building, but trying to make a place,’ says Tsien. That place now unfolds within Jackson Park, the Frederick Law Olmsted-designed landscape that once hosted the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition.

The surprise of the 19.3-acre campus is how little it feels like a monument. Instead, it reads as a series of spaces for everyday life, with small surprises throughout. While the 225-foot museum tower is the most recognisable image, an argument could be made that the real story happens at ground level: a forum, a Chicago Public Library branch, a 21,000 sq ft playground, gardens, beehives, a picnic area (complete with grills, per Barack’s request) and a regulation basketball court (in a separate building designed by Moody Nolan), all woven into a landscape by Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates (MVVA). With the exception of the museum, everything is free and open to the public.

'Play and fun was such a big part of what the Obamas wanted,’ says MVVA principal Matthew Bird, adding ‘having spaces to gather, and a variety of spaces, was extremely important.’

Interiors were the purview of Michael S. Smith, the Los Angeles designer responsible for the Obama White House interiors, and author of Designing History: The Extraordinary Art & Style of the Obama White House. He advised on furnishings and oversaw the museum’s full-scale recreation of the Oval Office circa 2014 (where visitors can have their photo taken at President Obama’s desk).

Art is everywhere, with more than two dozen commissioned works by artists including Julie Mehretu, Mark Bradford and Nick Cave, most of which can be viewed without a ticket.

About the tower. First: it is a museum, not a library, which explains the limited windows. The hand-made edifice is clad in what Williams describes as ‘very figured’ New Hampshire granite; other buildings on the site are clad in ‘a quieter stone.’

Visitors traverse the levels of exhibitions via escalators positioned directly next to the 83-foot-tall Mehretu stained glass piece, offering a colourful, filtered view of the city while ascending, often accompanied by music from Barack's own playlist.

Near the top, five-foot-tall concrete letters, creating sentences drawn from Obama’s 2015 Selma speech, wrap two elevations of the building. The installation, entitled You Are America, emerged from a collaboration with Pentagram consulting partner Michael Bierut, who suggested language as an alternative to an abstract pattern. The words – in the same typeface used by the former President during his campaign and his presidency - are intentionally difficult to read to avoid feeling ‘oppressingly bombastic,’ per Bierut.

Standing in the Sky Room at the top of the museum (the architects’ favourite space), visitors find themselves enveloped by those words, while gazing out across Chicago’s South and West Sides.

In a video posted by the Obama Foundation, Williams recalled that when the architects first met Barack, he said he wanted the centre to be ‘exactly the opposite of all presidential libraries.’ Mission accomplished.

In that same video, Barack lays out his hopes for its legacy: ‘Twenty years from now, 30 years from now, I want young people all across the South Side of Chicago, all across Chicago, all across America, to be able to look at this centre and say “this is a sign I count, and this is a sign that I can change the world."'

If you go to the newly opened David Geffen wing of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), I recommend you head there later in the afternoon, when the sun is a little lower on the horizon. When I first visited at 11am, the sun was directly overhead, and Peter Zumthor’s highly anticipated $724 million, 110,000 sq ft new building struck me as a dismal, dated, inelegant brute. But when I came back at 4pm, I came to a wildly different conclusion: in that more flattering light, I saw a brilliant innovation and true gift to the city. I think both visions can be true.

Commissioned by LACMA director Michael Govan 20 years ago, Zumthor was tasked with replacing an existing 1965 William Pereira building as the home of the encyclopedic museum’s permanent collection. In 2019, the city approved Zumthor’s plan to elevate an amoeba-shaped single storey high above the ground, with sinuous walls of floor-to-ceiling glass that would span Wilshire Boulevard like a bridge. Over the years, the design evolved in the face of various obstacles, including the diversion of time and budget towards removing fossils that were discovered on site, plus the realities of American construction at this scale. Best known for the material sensitivity and rigour of his often preciously small European projects, Zumthor publicly lamented how his design had been essentialised in the process. ‘There are no Zumthor details any more,’ he told The New York Times in a 2023 interview. (Although more recently, he’s disavowed this disavowal.)

At 900ft long, the finished building has no particularly beautiful angles from the outside. Where Zumthor’s renderings featured delicately curving glass and sandy-coloured stone, reality delivered windows framed in conspicuously thick bronze with more corners than curves, sandwiched between a pair of oppressively dark, remarkably flat concrete slabs. On the interior, the same sombre concrete forms the load-bearing walls of 26 standalone galleries that look like bunkers. At the top of the entrance’s 30ft-tall outdoor stairs (optional; there are also elevators), I wondered how I ended up in a basement.

At 11am, in the shadow of concrete eaves, the 360-degree windows cast a pallid light on the interiors and a glare on the vitrines. Among 21st-century museums, glass walls are a popular gesture of public-facing transparency, and in LA, a familiar feature of domestic space. But here they could’ve been used more discerningly. The view over Wilshire Boulevard is nice, like standing on a quintessential LA overpass, or the mezzanine in LACMA’s permanent collection above Metropolis II (2010), Chris Burden's kinetic sculpture of whizzing toy cars. Then the bridge ends with an anticlimactic, panoramic view of a nearby apartment complex’s stucco.

But just like LA public life, the building really starts to come alive in the later afternoon. During these magic hours, golden rays enter the museum horizontally, warming and brightening the concrete. The curtains become luminous, casting stripes of light and shadow on the floor. Suddenly, everyone’s complexion looks amazing.

The Geffen wing is the brilliant reinvention of the museum that LACMA says it is: exhibitions are porous and make use of every wall, both inside enclosed galleries and the interstitial, oddly shaped spaces in between. Not every feature, however, is precisely as described. The press release highlights Govan’s desire to exhibit the history of the world on a single, non-hierarchal plane, where Zumthor’s amorphous floorplan invites free-form exploration. The inaugural hang defines regions around bodies of water rather than by continent, a particularly beautiful way of repositioning ourselves in the world. Hierarchies, however, are inevitable. Some galleries are designed for more traffic than others. The entrance is positioned to send visitors down the long, linear hall facing Wilshire, where their first encounters are with Greek and Roman sculpture. Mounted right at the centre, for all of Wilshire Boulevard to see, top billing goes to Francis Bacon’s famed Three Studies of Lucian Freud (1969), a gift from the late mega-collector Elaine Wynn.

Where the museum purports to have no prescribed circulation paths, I disagree. This is an architecture that pulls and confounds, directing towards seductively framed views. Different pathways approach the same gallery from such remarkably different angles that you are drawn back into spaces you’ve already seen. One Mediterranean gallery seems to have an inexplicable gravitational pull. At the intersection of the Ottoman, Spanish and North African corridors, it forms a vortex where visitors often ask, ‘Weren’t we just in here?’ I asked a guard if he could point to our location on a map, and he said, ‘Good question.’

The joy is very much in getting lost. Zumthor intended for the interiors to feel like a walk through a forest, but I would say the dilation and contraction of the space feels more like a medieval town’s narrow streets and town squares. Overall, the building feels very familiar, local and correct. It adopts local vernacular architecture to a museum scale and animates visitors with recurring moments of awe. Alongside the sweeping vistas of sunset over Hancock Park, the aforementioned stucco apartments actually feel perfectly appropriate. The architecture is embedded with metaphors of taking a second look in a different light. It’s a tour through the truth of LA, both its banalities and grandeur. After many years of demolition and construction, complaints and delays, LACMA has finally come home.

If you happened to walk down Prince Street in New York’s Nolita neighbourhood these past few years, you probably noticed a new angular structure rising next to the ‘stacked box’ New Museum, completed by Japanese architecture firm SANAA in 2007.

The new tower, designed by OMA in collaboration with Cooper Robertson (now Corgan), was slated to be a separate yet connected extension, doubling the museum’s overall square footage to 120,000 sq ft. After a decade of development, the museum finally reopens this Saturday (21 March). It marks OMA’s first cultural project in the city, completed almost five decades after firm founder Rem Koolhaas published his seminal manifesto, Delirious New York.

'It’s not simply an extension, but a complement, a counterpart,' Koolhaas said in a video address (the Pritzker prize-winning architect was unable to attend a media preview due to a construction site injury). ‘We didn’t want to compete with scale. We interpreted the commission as if there were two parts that were finally united and that would form a single entity.’

While the two halves appear diametrically opposed – one formed as offset rectilinear volumes and the other a cut-crystal form with oblique setbacks – the spatial flow inside is seamless. The bulk of the expansion comprises four floors of galleries, which host an inaugural show titled 'New Humans: Memories of the Future.' These greatly expanded exhibition spaces extend across both buildings, with little indication of whether you're entering the new building or the old. There’s flexibility in how these open floor plates can be segmented and programmed, more than the existing building offered. As New Museum president Lisa Phillips put it, the addition can be thought of as an ‘insurance policy for the future’.

A series of carefully introduced interstitial spaces – an unfolding atrium staircase and a new street-facing plaza – also address the museum’s present and anticipate a future beyond just art-viewing: ‘Museums are the last truly public spaces in our cities,’ OMA New York director Shohei Shigematsu says – platforms for communities to gather and exchange ideas.

The street-facing atrium staircase, for instance, works to connect different groups of visitors, whether they’re browsing the galleries or catching a lecture. As part of the opening exhibition, a fibre artwork by Czech artist Klára Hosnedlová tumbles down four storeys. The three uppermost levels contain artist studios, offices, a 75-seat forum and a set of ‘sky rooms’, all of which comprise what the museum calls its ‘brain’.

One of OMA’s chief challenges was to telegraph the museum’s range of programming to the street; the SANAA-designed building was a ‘stacked pillar of art’, Shigematsu explains. ‘We needed to create a sense of transparency to outwardly communicate the diversity of activity taking place here’.

True to practice for OMA, this was achieved through the strategic configuration of the building’s massing. While it might seem like it’s pulling away from its counterpart, it’s actually making way for the plaza, which will soon be home to an installation by British artist Sarah Lucas.

The considered deployment of exterior cladding and glazing was also critical. Nodding to the metal mesh façade next door, Shigematsu and his team opted for a fine mesh laminated in sheets of glass. When sunlight hits the façade during the day, it takes on a metallic quality but one can still look outside from various vantage points and feel connected to the city. ‘During the day it has a monolithic quality and at night it exposes the anatomy of what’s going on inside,’ Shigematsu says. On long-term view at the intersection of the old and new façades is the site-specific sculpture titled Art Lovers by Tschabalala Self.

Interior finishes are largely kept to a minimum, but there are moments of excitement. The ground-floor restaurant, which will open later this spring, features materials like cork and textured glass. The stairway balustrades are made out of two layers of back-lit metal mesh, painted from behind in the New Museum’s signature green. The colour appears to glow at every turn.

Shigematsu likened the two buildings to a human couple, united yet unique. ‘The two buildings are similar but different,' he says.

The New Museum will open to the public on 21 March 2026 at 235 Bowery, New York, NY 10002

The highly anticipated Grand Egyptian Museum has been completed by Heneghan Peng Architects. Located just over a mile from the Pyramids of Giza, the landmark institution will showcase more than 5,000 artefacts and is set to become the largest museum in the world dedicated to a single civilisation. Its Tutankhamun Gallery will open to the public on November 1 2025.

The project originated from an international architecture competition held in 2003, won by the Dublin-based firm, which then collaborated with Arup and Buro Happold. Their design was envisioned as a bridge between ancient history and modern innovation. ‘Designing a museum of this calibre, in such close proximity to a landmark as monumental and symbolic as the pyramids, is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,’ says Heneghan Peng founding partner Róisín Heneghan. ‘Our design works to strengthen that connection to history and place, providing a home for some never-before-seen artefacts that rests upon the very land from which they were created.’

The museum’s geographical context played a key role in shaping its design. Perched on a desert plateau formed by the Nile, the building radiates outward toward the pyramids, its visual axis aligning with the three ancient structures. The radial lines of its walls and roof create a fan shape that echoes the shape of the pyramids, but which doesn’t rival their height.

At the heart of the museum lies a six-story staircase lined with monumental artefacts – such as the ten statues of King Senusret I – which leads visitors chronologically through Egypt’s history, from the Predynastic Period through to the Coptic era. The journey culminates at the top floor, home to the Tutankhamun Gallery’s permanent exhibitions, before opening out to a panoramic view of the pyramids.

Natural light is used wherever possible, although – as with all museums – this must take conservation concerns into account, and is mainly employed in areas housing more robust artefacts. Reinforced concrete helps regulate internal temperatures, reducing reliance on air conditioning.

Beyond its role as a world-class exhibition space, the Grand Egyptian Museum is envisioned as a cultural and educational hub for Cairo. Developed with landscape architects West 8, its extensive gardens evoke the verdant beauty of the Nile Valley. The museum also includes one of the largest conservation and research facilities in the world, featuring 17 specialised laboratories connected to the main building via an underground tunnel. These labs safeguard Egypt’s vast heritage – from fragile papyri and textiles to sculptures, pottery and human remains.

The completion of the Grand Egyptian Museum marks a milestone in the country’s heritage, standing as a testament to Egypt’s enduring influence on world civilisation.

After more than a decade and four proposed sites, the $1 billion Lucas Museum of Narrative Art is finally taking shape in Los Angeles’ Exposition Park. Designed by Ma Yansong of Beijing studio MAD Architects (which has an office in LA), with Stantec as executive architect, the swaggering, futuristic museum – co-founded by filmmaker George Lucas and his wife Mellody Hobson – is nearing the final stages of construction, edging toward a projected 2026 opening on its 11-acre campus.

The five-story, 300,000 sq ft building will house galleries, theatres, classrooms, dining and retail spaces, all in service of the museum’s mission to explore how visual stories reflect and shape society. It will contain much of Lucas’ art collection – illustrations, paintings, photography, and other media centred on visual storytelling – as well as artifacts from the Lucasfilm archives, such as props, costumes, and storyboards from Star Wars and Indiana Jones.

The museum was originally envisioned for a site in San Francisco’s Presidio in 2010, with a design by Dallas-based Urban Design Group, but the proposal was rejected by the Presidio Trust. Lucas then looked to Chicago’s lakefront, where the project faced opposition from preservationists advocating to keep the site open for public use, and MAD’s design, which had been selected through an international competition in 2014, was ultimately shelved. Undeterred, Lucas and Ma developed parallel proposals for San Francisco’s Treasure Island and LA’s Exposition Park, with both cities competing to host the project. In 2016, Los Angeles was selected. Initially slated to open in 2021, the museum has seen delays due to the pandemic and other setbacks.

Though his firm created designs for three different sites, certain ideas held firm, says Ma. From the start, the Lucas Museum was conceived as a space to embody the emotional and narrative power of art and storytelling, he notes. 'That core vision remained constant across all three iterations, even as the contexts shifted.'

The final site offered unique opportunities. Surrounded by cultural institutions and embedded in a park landscape, 'we were able to shape a building that is both part of its environment and entirely its own', Ma says. The long design process also gave the team time to refine their thinking around sustainability, materials, and public space. 'It allowed the design to mature – not just in form, but in spirit.'

It’s hard to avoid the term space-age when describing the museum’s jaw-dropping form. While Ma is known for his attention-grabbing designs, his work is deeply rooted in nature and its relationship to the built environment. 'Nature is not simply an aesthetic reference for me,' he says. 'It’s a way of thinking about space, emotion, and experience.'

The building’s flowing curves and softened edges stand in contrast to the city’s rigid geometries. They’re inspired by natural topographies – mountains, clouds, waves. 'Yet they are not literal imitations,' says Ma. 'They create a spatial experience that feels both grounded and otherworldly.'

Elevated at the centre to preserve views and form a public gathering space, the building acts as a canopy over a plaza that connects it to the surrounding landscape and streetscape. An elliptical oculus crowns the plaza, marking a gateway to the larger park.

The idea of nature extends to the museum’s sustainability strategies, which include a geothermal system, rainwater harvesting, 24,000 sq ft of rooftop photovoltaics, a super-insulated envelope and seismic isolation engineered to withstand 42 inches of ground movement in any direction. 'The building becomes part of a living system,' says Ma. 'It becomes part of the park, part of the city, and part of the natural world.'

As the vessel for the museum’s collection, the landmark structure is also intended to be part of the storytelling experience. Soaring north and south lobbies draw visitors into 100,000 sq ft of exhibition and public space. Clad in 1,500 uniquely shaped white fibreglass-reinforced polymer (FRP) panels, the Lucas Museum strives to be both iconic and contextually integrated – its landscaped roof helping it blend into the park’s topography.

That nearly 1.5-acre roof is part of a broader vision by Mia Lehrer of Studio-MLA, who is transforming what was once a parking lot into a verdant, immersive environment. The new landscape will feature undulating landforms, 200 trees, hundreds of native and drought-tolerant plantings and a series of experiential elements: a hanging garden, amphitheatre, meadow and a waterfall designed to contribute to the museum’s passive cooling strategy.

Ma has said he hopes his architecture evokes emotion – not a single feeling, but a range of responses shaped by the experience of space. 'Architecture should move people. It should create a sense of wonder, of possibility, and of being connected to something larger than oneself,' he says.

At the Lucas Museum, whether walking through public spaces or sitting beneath the plaza canopy, 'I want visitors to feel openness, imagination, and peace. The soft, sculptural form invites reflection. The pathways and thresholds encourage movement and discovery.'

Visitors will soon be able to draw their own conclusions, as the museum’s long journey comes to an end and they are able to experience it firsthand.

Shut your eyes and jab a finger at a map of the US and you will likely find a brand new, freshly spruced up or forthcoming art museum within driving distance of your digit.

In the Great Plains, there’s the Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha, Nebraska, with its sweeping new wing by Snøhetta. Venture south and you’ll encounter the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art in Tennessee, by Herzog & de Meuron, and can look forward to the development of a Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art expansion, in Kansas City, Missouri, currently being designed by Weiss Manfredi. Head to New York and discover the reimagined Frick Collection, a Beaux Arts-era mansion overhauled by Selldorf Architects, in addition to soon-to-open expansions of the New Museum, Studio Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, helmed by OMA, Adjaye Associates and Frida Escobedo Studio, respectively.

Museums are getting bigger on the western seaboard, too. The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) will soft launch its Peter Zumthor-designed extension this summer, while The Broad, completed only a decade ago, is also getting a makeover – it just broke ground on a new 50,000 sq ft addition by Diller Scofidio + Renfro. And that’s not even touching on projects in the wider cultural sphere, such as the revamped Storm King sculpture park in New York’s Hudson Valley, or the Doris Duke Theatre at Jacob’s Pillow by Mecanoo, the performing arts centre slated to open this summer.

According to data collected by AEA Consulting, a global firm that offers strategic services for the cultural sector, around 90 new cultural projects were announced in North America last year alone. ‘The museum sector has been on a long-term building binge,’ says AEA founder Adrian Ellis.

This may seem paradoxical, especially for the US, which has been plagued by culture wars and budget cuts, so what is behind the boom? One obvious culprit is the Covid-19 pandemic, which saw construction projects around the world grind to a halt before then picking up again. Aaron Dorf, a director at architecture firm Snøhetta, thinks museum work has always been cyclical, but the pandemic definitely contributed to a fresh wave of activity. ‘There were probably plenty of institutions that were in the pre-planning phase and hit pause, so that shifted the timeline for a number of them,’ he says. But there is more than that at play. One of the biggest drivers, says Brian Butterfield, a director at Why Architecture, is quite simply to do with building lifecycles.

'The biggest failure point of museums is the mechanical systems,’ he says, citing critical conservation infrastructure, such as temperature and humidity control. ‘Every 20-30 years, you have to replace them.’ Renovations and expansions are a prime opportunity to not only upgrade ageing systems but also to fund them. ‘It’s quite hard to raise a lot of money for what a layperson sees as an air conditioning replacement project,’ notes Butterfield, pointing to his firm’s recent overhaul of the 40,000 sq ft Michael C Rockefeller Wing at the Met, a portion of the museum that first opened more than four decades ago. Working with the Met’s design team, as well as Beyer Blinder Belle, they were able to reinstall art collections from Africa, Oceania and the Americas, but also incorporate digital features, display light-sensitive works (some on view to visitors for the first time) and conduct a complete mechanical overhaul. ‘The public sees the gallery renovation, but underneath the skin is a full systems upgrade that will hopefully last another 50 years,’ says Butterfield.

Ellis sees the recent uptick in museum openings and expansions as part of a longer trajectory, one that began way back in 1997 with the opening of Bilbao’s Guggenheim Museum, designed by Frank Gehry. Cities began to look for more ways to make themselves appealing to both residents and visitors. ‘One of the things those cities alighted on was cultural infrastructure,’ says Ellis. ‘Bilbao was the poster child for this.’

Institutional soul-searching combined with macro trends such as globalisation, the need for heightened security post-9/11, and the ability to access culture in the palm of your hand via a smartphone, among other factors, necessitated a radical shift in the way museums got built, how they courted visitors and how they stacked up against their peers.

‘The tricky thing with museums is how do you keep your existing audience while attracting new ones that are younger and more diverse?’ says Butterfield. ‘Museums want to stay relevant. To do that, you have to evolve. And mostly, that means big capital projects.’

The LACMA extension, which has been in the works for nearly two decades, is a case in point. Its David Geffen Galleries will add nearly 110,000 sq ft to the museum. The project will not only comprise traditional spaces for art viewing, but also a new visitor entrance, outdoor plazas, a theatre, a store, dining destinations and educational facilities.

And museums aren’t the only ones thinking about the future; it’s a question that America’s ageing donor class also has top of mind. ‘There’s a certain generation with priceless art collections. And there are a lot of big capital projects that are being driven by promised gifts,’ says Butterfield.

The Joslyn’s new wing, for example, was built in part to accommodate the collection of the late entrepreneur Phillip G Schrager, a monumental gift that included 52 works by the likes of John Chamberlain, Jenny Holzer, Roy Lichtenstein and Antony Gormley. And the drive is not just steered by philanthropists and collectors – museum directors are also thinking about their legacies. ‘How do you make your mark?’ says Ellis. ‘Often the easiest way is a capital project. It’s very concrete, no pun intended.’

The money for such projects is certainly out there. According to data collected by Ellis’ firm, of the world’s top ten budgets for recently announced cultural construction projects, nine are in the US. ‘We’re talking about a quarter of a billion to half a billion dollars in the larger projects. These are incredible sums of money,’ he says. ‘Where are these sums coming from? They’re coming from private philanthropy in one form or another. We’re living in a period that’s not dissimilar in many ways from the Gilded Age when all those big museums, like the Met, were formed a century ago.’

However, it does look like this golden age for museum construction, at least in the Western world, is starting to slow down. ‘I think, to some extent, that trend has run or is running its course in Europe and America,’ says Ellis. Dorf concurs: ‘I think we’re on the downslope of a crest.’

The data supports those observations. According to the AIA’s April Architectural Billings Index, an indicator of construction health in the US, project billings have softened for 28 out of the past 31 months, which economists chalk up to uncertainty. Museums will likely feel the squeeze, too, says Ellis. ‘I’m not saying there’s going to be a precipitous decline, but I’m saying you may be looking at peak museum building as a function of peak museum planning.’

Which begs the question, are bigger museums better? ‘If you look at museums that people uniformly declare to be their favourite museums, they tend not to be enormous buildings but relatively modest, like the Sir John Soane’s Museum – they are relatable experiences,’ says Ellis. ‘Very few people put mega museums as their favourite. And I think there’s a lesson there that we probably need to learn.’ A lesson that half-billion-dollar budgets cannot buy.

When Louis Kahn was floated as the potential architect of a new museum on Yale University’s campus, a visit was in order.

One morning in April 1969, the museum’s patron, Paul Mellon, met Kahn over breakfast in La Jolla, California before a tour of the architect’s recently-completed Salk Institute. Throughout the meal, Kahn enthusiastically scribbled his ideas on paper napkins. Mellon was clearly impressed by the demonstration. On the drive to see the Salk Institute, as Yale Professor and museum director Jules Prown recalled decades later, “Paul, ever the collector, lamented his failure to pick up the napkins.”

But Mellon did pick up an architect: Kahn was announced as the designer of the Yale Center for British Art (YCBA) just six months later.

The museum was to be a temple to the study and appreciation of British paintings, drawings and sculpture. Mellon, a philanthropist, horse-breeder and ardent Anglophile, had amassed a collection of thousands of works by late 18th-and-early-19th-century English masters like William Hogarth, George Stubbs, John Constable, J. M. W. Turner and others.

Though Kahn’s style was distinctly modern—all powerful geometries, muscular materials, shadow and light—he took cues from grand English country estates in his design. Galleries were conceived as stately rooms for contemplation and conversation; sunshine was to filter in through skylights; Kahn even incorporated references to fireplaces as he refined his concept.

But the architect never saw the completion of YCBA; in March 1974, midway through the building’s construction, he died of a heart attack in New York’s Pennsylvania Station. YCBA would officially open on 19 April 1977—eight years after Kahn’s napkin sketches in La Jolla.

Nearly half a century later, YCBA remains a pivotal institution in the study of British artistic output. In fact, today it contains the largest collection of British art outside of the United Kingdom. But as the years elapsed, it was clear that the aging building would require restoration to keep pace with the needs of a contemporary museum. Following nearly a decade of successive conservation projects and a two-year closure, YCBA will officially welcome the public back through its doors on Saturday.

‘It’s such a gem, and a real jewel here on campus and also in the city of New Haven,’ says Dana Greenidge, YCBA’s head of museum initiatives and building conservation. ‘I think the biggest challenge is how can we uphold Kahn’s legacy and also continue to serve this program and continue to make it relevant in the 21st-century?’

This round of updates—which follows a larger, eight-year, $33 million restoration by local firm Knight Architecture that wrapped up in 2022—is so surgical and faithful that visitors will likely not even notice the changes. The biggest design adjustments involved updating the galleries’ lighting to contemporary museum standards.

Over the course of the $16.5 million renovation, the conservation team swapped the original halogen fixtures with more energy-efficient LEDS; replaced 6,817 feet of track; installed 2,515 new fixtures; and retrofitted 611 older ones. In addition to changing out 224 original acrylic skylights for more resilient polycarbonate versions, the designers devised a system of new acrylic ‘cassettes’ to better control daylight and conserve different types of artworks on display. Regular wear-and-tear was addressed too, from replacing patches of carpet to updating the cream-coloured Belgian linen that clads the walls.

But the most exciting refreshes involve the collection itself. Closing the museum for two years gave the curatorial team the opportunity to revisit YCBA’s deep collections and rethink how the works could be interpreted.

‘[Before] a lot of the collection was brilliant, but could also be quite dense—quite didactic,’ says Lucinda Lax, YCBA’s curator of paintings and sculpture. ‘We wanted to move away from that and make the artwork and the architecture work in a harmonious relationship together.’

That started with the museum’s top, skylit floor, which was formerly devoted to historical artworks. Now, in a new exhibition called In a New Light it displays five centuries of British creativity, from 17th-century portraits of English nobility to an arresting sculpture by contemporary British artist Yinka Shonibare.

Part of the reinstallation involved de-densifying the floor by removing display partitions, a move that opens up fresh sightlines through Kahn’s building and enables fresh connections between the subject matter. To wit; as soon as you ascend the staircase, you’re greeted by a circa-1710 oil painting of exotic birds in a park juxtaposed with a Cecily Brown’s more tumultuous 2019 bestiary, ‘The Hound with the Horses Hooves.’

‘Even if you don't know about British art, I think as you wander around, you could see intuitively that things are changing,’ Lax adds.

It also serves to tell a more nuanced, complicated story of the British empire. ‘We wanted the paintings to kind of lead the way,’ says museum director Martina Droth. ‘One of the things we found was that close to half of the artists that you see on this floor weren't actually born in Britain…so there's a global narrative that's already here that we don't have to force out into the open. It's kind of imbricated in the collection.’

Revisiting the permanent collection enabled more freedom with temporary exhibitions, too. The museum is re-opening with two separate exhibitions, one on the works of Turner on the occasion of his 250th birthday; the other, an exhibit of paintings by Tracey Emin I Loved You Until the Morning, the artist’s first-ever painting show. Though they lived and worked in different centuries, there are still surprising parallels between Emin and Turner, chiefly their connection to the seaside town of Margate, England.

“Tracey, as a painter, just loves this idea–that she has seen the same sunset, the same shoreline, as Turner. For her, that's very resonant,’ says Droth. ‘And she loves the idea that her paintings can be seen as part of a longer trajectory.’

Already, that kind of long view feels very present in YCBA’s galleries. On a recent afternoon, Yale students were welcomed back into the museum. Sunlight flooded into the entrance court. A reception in an event hall had a photobooth with props that included plush corgis and Union Jacks. Even Handsome Dan, the English bulldog that’s Yale’s mascot, trundled through the galleries.

What would Kahn himself make of the changes? If he noticed a difference, he likely would have shrugged. After all, as the architect once told Jules Prown, ‘The architect cannot camp in his building.’

After nearly 15 years of redesigns, fits, and starts, Angelenos will finally be able to get a peek inside the newly-expanded Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) this summer.

The new David Geffen Galleries, which sweep over Wilshire Boulevard like a concrete amoeba, were designed by the Pritzker prize-winning Swiss architect Peter Zumthor—his first-ever U.S. project.

While LACMA won’t open officially to the public until April 2026, the museum will gradually begin to welcome visitors starting this June via a series of outdoor installations, events, and special previews, plus the opening of a new restaurant and shop.

'We’re excited that visitors from both near and far can begin to experience the impact of this amazing building this year, as we ramp up toward the 2026 grand opening celebration,' said museum director and CEO Michael Govan. 'Harnessing the power of art to console, we also hope to be a part of the spiritual healing of Los Angeles as it recovers from the recent unprecedented fires.'

Critics haven’t always been as generous in their assessment. Zumthor’s design became a lightning rod when its preliminary design, a black organic volume inspired by the adjacent La Brea tarpits, was unveiled in 2013. The critic Christopher Knight called it the 'incredible shrinking museum,' due to the design displacing several of the campus’s existing pavilions, including one by L.A modernist William Pereira. Architectural Record, meanwhile, called the scheme the 'Blob that Ate Wilshire Boulevard.'

Zumthor, who worked along SOM for the LACMA plan, made several revisions to the design, due to concerns it would interfere with paleontological research at the tarpits next door.

'There have been tough moments, when we had to reduce, reduce, reduce,' Zumthor acknowledged in the New York Times.

Despite the setbacks, the 'building and its surroundings will start to come to life' according to a museum press release. In the future, visitors can expect to encounter a special commission by Mexican artist Mariana Castillo Deball, in addition to works by Sarah Rosalena, Pedro Reyes, Liz Glynn, Shio Kusaka, and others. American saxophonist Kamasi Washington, meanwhile, will be staging a series of special performances between June 26 through 28th.

Last week, the New Museum, a Manhattan hub for new art and ideas, announced that it will open a 60,000 sq ft expansion in autumn of this year. The building has been designed by international architecture firms OMA (the Office for Metropolitan Architecture) and Cooper Robertson, and its opening will coincide with an inaugural exhibition called New Humans: Memories of the Future.

The New Museum originally opened in 1977 on New York’s Hudson Street; it has since moved and expanded, becoming a renowned space for contemporary art. OMA founder Rem Koolhas and partner Shohei Shigematsu are among the architects to work on the extension, the practice's first public building in New York, which will be named after the late philanthropist Toby Devan Lewis, a long-serving New Museum trustee. It will ‘usher in a new era of possibilities for the New Museum as a vital civic resource for New Yorkers and the global arts community’, said Lisa Phillips, Toby Devan Lewis director of the New Museum.

She added that ‘the New Museum has always been a ‘future-facing museum’ – ‘not a place for preserving and recording history, but a place where history is made’. As such, the extension will complement the existing building on the Bowery at Prince Street, which was designed by SANAA, whilst also bringing a new dimension, doubling the museum’s gallery space, improving visitor flow, and creating new venues for artist residencies and public programs. The new building will be a ‘highly connected yet distinct counterpart to the existing museum’s verticality and solidity’, said Shigematsu.

The OMA partner also revealed that the extension will ‘offer horizontally expansive galleries for curatorial variety, open vertical circulation, and a diversity of spaces for gathering, exchange, and creation’. It will include, he said, an outdoor plaza at the ground level, ‘moments of transparency throughout the central atrium’, and terraced openings at the top.

The inaugural exhibition will be an ‘encyclopedic, interdisciplinary exhibition that continues the Museum's engagement with the most pressing issues of today’, said Massimiliano Gioni, Edlis Neeson artistic director of the New Museum: ‘Through the work of more than 150 artists, writers, and cultural figures, New Humans reveals how our most terrifying contemporary concerns are in fact as old as humanity itself. [The exhibition] highlights the role artists play in interpreting and confronting the critical issues that will shape our collective fate.’

The New Museum is ‘an incubator for new cultural perspectives and production’, said Shigematsu, and we look forward to seeing OMA’s architectural interpretation of this methodology.

oma.com

The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation’s complex in Lisbon has been one of the city’s best-loved landmarks since it opened in the 1960s. The foundation aims to improve quality of life through art, charity, science and education, and its Lisbon campus encompasses a main office, library, the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum, scientific research centre and contemporary art museum, Centro de Arte Moderna (CAM), which reopens this year following an extensive four-year renovation by Japanese studio Kengo Kuma & Associates. Designed in collaboration with landscape architect Vladimir Djurovic, the update cleverly reconfigures the space and extends the foundation’s gardens to craft a more cohesive relationship between the existing structures.

Explore Centro de Arte Moderna at Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon

The original CAM building was designed in 1983 by British architect Leslie Martin, who led the team behind London’s Royal Festival Hall. The museum already holds almost 12,000 artworks, spanning paintings, sculptures, installations, drawings, prints, photographs and films by some of the country’s most renowned artists, such as Helena Almeida, Joana Vasconcelos, Paula Rego and Maria Helena Vieira da Silva, as well as a significant collection of works by international and British artists, including Sonia and Robert Delaunay, David Hockney and Bridget Riley.

Keen to expand its growing collection, in 2019, the foundation held a competition in a bid to better integrate the museum with its garden setting, » which was originally designed by António Viana Barreto and Gonçalo Ribeiro Telles. Rather than create an extension that ate into the garden, Kuma’s suggested design added galleries underneath the building, while a new entrance at the rear would open it up on to a public plaza. In choosing this proposal, the foundation selected a design that put contemporary art at its heart, as well as allowing the venue to connect with its surrounding context.

The reimagined building has glass doors on either side of the new entrance, affording visitors views of both the old and new gardens. In the main exhibition hall, girders add an industrial feel, while on the lower ground floor, light is brought in through windows that look up on to the garden. In CAM’s main gallery, Nave, is an installation by Leonor Antunes, who also curated an exhibition by around 30 women artists for the museum’s reopening. The crowning glory, meanwhile, is the engawa, a 100m canopy that spans the entire width of the building. Featuring planks of ash covered with white Portuguese ceramic tiles, and flowing in a wave-like form that ripples out from the top down, the canopy is held up by twin pillars that Kuma describes as like pine needles.

‘There is much to consider when looking at art, and sometimes it is very stressful to process these powerful messages. The engawa serves as a meditative space in the shade,’ says Kuma. Providing shelter, seating and a spot for quiet contemplation, the engawa acts as a transitional zone between the museum and the garden. Connecting with the community and the landscape was a key concern during the project’s conception, and that extended to the use of local materials and the celebration of their natural variations through the design.

‘A building should be connected with us and with its location. Using local materials is necessary to make this kind of connection,’ says Kuma. For him, surface variations echo the diversity of the city. ‘In industrial materials, there is no variation. I chose materials for their natural roughness and variations. I was drawn to them because we, ourselves, are diverse, we are not industrial products and we feel a certain sympathy for these kinds of materials.’

The use of solely native plants in the gardens complements this approach. A year of research went into selecting the species that now include polypodium vulgare (a native fern), euphorbia characias and polygonatum odoratum. They were collected in the wild and grown in a nursery before being planted. Some of the larger trees, such as the quercus suber (cork oak), quercus rotundifolia (holm oak) and quercus faginea (Portuguese oak), were also transplanted from the wild, creating a garden that, when fully grown, will be completely self-sufficient.

‘We approached this project with a lot of humbleness and respect for what had already been done,’ says Djurovic. ‘We knew that if Gonçalo Ribeiro Telles had been here today and he had had to do that extension, he would have let nature talk – the garden would have been as natural as possible.’

This project has transformed the Gulbenkian campus, benefiting both the environment and the local community. Dramatic changes have been made to what was already there, but with a lightness of touch, as the new design updates the original to create a seamless transition between the site’s various spaces. Says Kuma, ‘In our vision for CAM, we crafted a new outdoor narrative, where architecture and nature converse in harmony, inviting visitors to slow down and make this space their own.’

kkaa.co.jp

gulbenkian.pt

London's National Portrait Gallery reopens this week, in one of the most highly anticipated relaunches of the year. The popular cultural attraction, set right in the heart of the capital, has been reimagined by a team led by Jamie Fobert Architects and conservation specialist Purcell, with a new design that sees the institution's previously increasingly unfit quarters opened up in a generous and subtly luxurious new home. 

Architect and studio head Jamie Fobert at the gallery's preview tour said: 'Hopefully, we have now achieved a much better balance between the building and its collection.'

National Portrait Gallery reopens: the challenge

When the National Portrait Gallery first opened in St Martin's Place in 1896, it turned its back to the north, facing instead more towards Trafalgar Square; this meant though that opportunities for a spacious entrance and public space outside the gallery were missed. Now, the institution has been realigned towards a rethought plaza on its north side, significantly improving visibility and accessibility. A new landscaped square – including built-in benches in the granite that features in the main building's base – highlights the new entrance. Its door, an artwork by Tracy Emin, celebrates female figures through a series of etched portraits. 

The historic building was designed by Ewan Christian with rich detailing and generous proportions, and the redesign team aimed to restore the grandeur of the original structure, which was partly lost due to additions and tweaks over its decades of operation. Importantly, the entrance lobby was opened up by removing gallery walls. This means that a spacious interior greets visitors, alongside a new store (created by Alex Cochrane Architects) and café, both now looking out towards the bustling central London street. 

This newly expanded ground level invites guests in and is free to enter, celebrating the gallery's collection. At the same time, the architecture team worked to restore original features, reveal mosaics, and honour the delicate detail in the period structure's identity. Portland stone, granite and bespoke timber dominate, framing Christian's original gestures that nod to a Florentine Palazzo and a Byzantine chapel (to the north and east façades, respectively).

'It’s a strange gallery, an art gallery that is not about art. It is about art sometimes but it’s about people,' Fobert said, stressing that it was important for the space to feel open and accessible. The working internal main hall with its tall escalator leading up to the galleries, and a bespoke reception desk, make the space feel both welcoming and dramatic.

'It is a project of many projects – the first was turning to face the city, then opening up and creating access,' Fobert added. 'We also had to completely transform the learning centre.' The reimagined learning centre ensures that state-of-the-art facilities spread knowledge of the gallery's rich holdings to all ages and audiences, inspiring generations to come.

'We added 71 sq m with this project… We created a huge extension, without an extension – just through spaces that were underused,' Fobert pointed out. 

Meanwhile, upstairs, the treasured collections of the institution are highlighted in a gallery restored by Purcell, with interpretation design by London studio Nissen Richards Architects. Colour plays a key role here, its changes and shades signifying the transition between different rooms and eras. Display cases and lighting have also been created anew, taking into account contemporary accessibility requirements.

Many of the gallery’s classics are there, both historical and contemporary, alongside many new additions – promising a fulfilling and riveting experience for visitors.

The National Portrait Gallery reopens to the public on 22 June 2023

npg.org.uk 

jamiefobertarchitects.com 

purcelluk.com 

After nearly two decades of work, entrepreneur and environmentalist Luiz Felipe Aranha Moura is launching his plan to bring the municipality of Belterra, Brazil, back to the future. His visionary new Museu de Ciência da Amazônia, also known as MuCA, or the Museum of Amazonian Science, is an ambitious project that builds on fascinating local history, and has been made possible with the help of a team of high-powered collaborators, including the celebrated Brazilian architect Arthur Casas (whose monograph, Arthur Casas. Architecture, was recently published).

Museum of Amazonian Science: the origins

Belterra was created by Henry Ford in 1933. The American car manufacturer was trying to establish independent large-scale rubber production for his company, having unsuccessfully attempted to create a utopian city called Fordlandia in the heart of the Amazon five years earlier. He took the learnings from the missteps that led to Fordlandia’s resounding failure and doubled down, building what became Belterra in the image of his home town of Dearborn, Michigan. As a result, the city was laid out like an early American suburb, with hundreds of wooden buildings arranged in rows off a main street, uniform in white and emerald green and in contrast with the typical architecture of the local Tapajós culture.

While Belterra was more successful than its predecessor, the Ford Motor Company ultimately abandoned both operations when rubber production in Asia resumed after World War II, leaving behind an idiosyncratic architectural legacy tainted by Ford’s insistence on imposing American ways of working and living on the local populations.

The contrast between Ford and Moura could not be starker. One can hear the latter’s reverence for the Tapajós culture and the local people in his voice as he explains the project’s potential and their roles in it.

A chemical engineer by training, the São Paulo-born Moura is the founder and CEO of a food business producing spirulina, an algae-based, nutrient-rich supplement. But serving as director of this expansive not-for-profit project is clearly his first love: ‘I am passionate about the Amazon forest and its potential. The Tapajós Valley will be a new Silicon Valley for biotechnology, and can play a major role in saving humanity. I have always wanted to be a part of that.’

MuCA, therefore, is far more than a museum. It is a large, multi-dimensional project, the breadth and depth of which rivals Ford’s effort here, with the potential to have a far more positive impact. It involves nearly two dozen government and non-governmental agencies, strategic partners, consultants and donors, with a multi-pronged mission to create educational and economic opportunity for locals, revitalise Belterra, and help stop deforestation locally and across the wider Amazon rainforest. 

Museum of Amazonian Science: the vision

The project will offer education and support for students, businesses and entrepreneurs to create a local biodiverse economy. In the coming years, MuCA will train hundreds of people in the region to work in sustainable forest services, and support scientific research in the Amazon. By creating a sustainable supply chain for the Amazon’s most valuable ingredients, that is accessible to local companies and contractors, it is hoped the incentive will shift from raising cattle or growing soybeans (the main drivers of deforestation) to harvesting and selling the plethora of compounds that thrive naturally there, such as jambú. Also known as the Botox plant for its anti-ageing properties, this is much in demand by the pharmaceutical and beauty industries. 

These ingredients can be responsibly extracted, using methods employed by the Tapajó people for centuries and which do not require deforestation. Until now, the missing link has been the lack of a proving laboratory and the requisite processes and certifications needed for small companies and independent contractors to realise top prices by selling directly to consumers. 

Working with the Federal University of Western Pará (UFOPA), MuCA will provide that support platform, creating the first advanced jungle laboratory in the Amazon. This will help streamline the supply chain, maximising profit for local entities while minimising ecosystem damage. Previously, beef and soybeans were the most profitable commodities. The big bet is that, as the incentive structure shifts, so will business practices. The laboratory will also lead food science, medical, phytopharmaceutical and biocosmetic studies using native animals, plants and micro-organisms to develop new products and promote more sustainable bioeconomies. It is also the beginning of the use here of ESG (environmental, social and governance) protocols, which are already in operation elsewhere across the globe.  

The MuCA building took four years to complete, and was designed by São Paulo-based architect Gino Caldatto Barbosa. Prior to construction, Moura had to work with local and state governments to create the protected park within which the building sits. The area is home to some of the most significant of Ford’s buildings and was originally called ‘American Village’, a name that has been maintained.  

In addition to extensive laboratory facilities and true to its name, MuCA also contains exhibition space, which will launch with a show called ‘Vida’, demonstrating
the connections between the Amazon forest and societies around the world. It was designed by the São Paulo-based Atelier Marko Brajovic, which also created MuCA’s brand identity. A 50-seat auditorium is filled with custom-designed furniture by Arthur Casas and is inspired by centuries-old Tapajó motifs. 

The theatre’s seating, alongside all of the project’s furniture, was made by Coomflona, a regional woodworking co-operative that uses only sustainably-sourced local wood and traditional techniques. The group’s heritage-rich approach also informed Casas’ furniture designs. At the building’s heart will be an open-air café and co-working space, lush with the landscaping work of MuCA’s botanists, who specialise in Amazonian flora and its restoration. 

Museum of Amazonian Science: the future

The completion of the building is a tipping point for the project, but it is just the first phase in a master plan to revitalise the city in support of MuCA’s mission. Casas
has designed a group of new administrative buildings for the Belterra city government, which is vacating Ford’s nearby houses to make way for a five-star hotel, another Casas design. The six new buildings blend Brazilian modernism and Tapajó tradition: low-slung modern shapes incorporating perforated wood screens and slatted façades, thatched accents, and open-air courtyards with native trees poking above flat roof lines with solar panels. They are all connected by a wooden walkway elevated above the jungle floor. 

Casas is also renovating one of the most significant of Ford’s houses, once reserved
for the auto baron himself, into a culinary school, research kitchen and tasting restaurant by Le Cordon Bleu Brasil, called Centro da Cultura Alimentar Tapajônica, or Tapajônica Cultural Food Center. Launching later this year, revered chef Saulo Jennings will prepare Amazonian ingredients and Tapajó cuisine for students and visitors alike.

The image of the Amazon for foreigners and Brazilians alike is that of a fascinating world of flora and fauna, but challenging and uncomfortable for its mosquitoes and associated health risks. But Belterra is different. While part of the Amazon, the area lacks the particular insect population that limits tourism to the most intrepid travellers. Here, it is easy to imagine the city’s future as a cultural, educational and leisure hub, with MuCA at the heart of it all. 

It will start with Casas’ five-star hotel. Talks are ongoing with two major luxury hotel brands to operate the hospitality component of the project, which Casas has located partly in a number of the historic Ford houses within American Village, and partly in new-build villas and an impressive clubhouse at the edge of the Tapajó river. This boasts stunning, clear water and, for eight months of the year when the river is low, white sandy beaches. The idyllic environment and pleasant climate hint at even more long-term potential for the area. It will likely continue with riverfront holiday homes tucked away under the canopy of the Amazon rainforest and a revitalised downtown Belterra. There is even a private airport built by Ford, which remains in relatively good condition. 

But the likely boom in tourism and second home ownership in this somewhat unlikely place is not the story. It is a story of vision and dedication to people and the environment on the part of Mouro and his partners, and one of redemption and progress for a city abandoned long ago, for its people, their culture and their forest, and hopefully, over time, the global environment.  

mucamazonia.org  

arthurcasas.com  

A version of this story appears in the May 2023 Issue of Wallpaper*, available now in print, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today

Sydney Modern opens its doors this week, following its contemporary and considered transformation by Japanese architecture studio SANAA. In an in-depth story published in our November 2022 issue, curator Kate Goodwin reported from the site, offering a sneak peek at what the Art Gallery of New South Wales has been up to – namely, preparing for the launch of its brand-new Sydney Modern wing, which is now complete and ready to receive its first, art-loving guests. 

Sydney Modern opens

Sydney Modern is, in the words of director Michael Brand, ‘a transformation and expansion’, adding a new wing and extensive landscaping, while updating the gallery's old structure, Goodwin wrote. The architects flagged the connection the new complex of volumes offers to its surrounding city and nature. ‘It is a building that breathes with the city, the parkland and the beautiful harbour,’ SANAA’s Kazuyo Sejima. 

Inside, indoors and outdoors blend at many points, following SANAA's signature architecture approach of lightness and openness. Large openings and swathes of glass underscore this, helping connect the galleries with their context and crafting a unique site-specific approach. Meanwhile, the building's programme is updated too. There is a relocated Yiribana Gallery on the ground level, which places the deep continuity of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art and culture at the heart of the new building; and the extraordinary new Tank space, which will become the home of many future commissions. 

The new expansion ‘is more than just a treasure house with collections’, Brand said to Goodwin. SANAA's ethereal addition, with its well-calculated architectural space and civic dimension, promises exciting times and immersive art experiences for years to come.

Sydney Modern opens to the public on 3 December 2022

artgallery.nsw.gov.au

sanaa.co.jp

Our sneak preview into Sydney Modern was included in the November 2022 Art Special Issue of Wallpaper*, available in print, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today

Gainsborough House, the childhood home of the celebrated British artist Thomas Gainsborough, is about to reopen in Sudbury, Suffolk. The space, which has been undergoing thorough refurbishment and redesign by architecture studio ZMMA, is now the largest gallery in its region, and is set to become a key cultural destination for it. The refresh encompasses a new three-storey building, to house an entrance area, as well as four modern gallery spaces. 

Gainsborough House reopening

To match the area's architectural language and the existing buildings on site, the new structure was composed in locally made brick and flint. These contemporary spaces are complemented by the careful restoration of the original, Grade I-listed late medieval, Georgian and Regency townhouse where the painter lived. As part of the complex, the open glass-faced Watering Place café and terrace offer connections to the garden as well as a place for visitors and the local community to gather, sit and relax to enjoy and take in the scenery. 

'The powerful connection between the landscape surrounding Sudbury and its representation in Gainsborough’s work inspired us to create a new gallery building whose clay and flint materials are brought directly from Gainsborough’s Suffolk landscape. From the expanded museum campus, visitors will enjoy long views of the countryside beyond the town’s rooftops. Sudbury’s silk-weaving led us to make brickwork façades that appear woven, and to silk-line a new gallery for Gainsborough’s grandest canvasses. Gainsborough’s home has been reimagined and enriched to make complementary historic and modern settings for the museum’s displays,' says Adam Zombory-Moldovan, project director at ZMMA. 

zmma.com

gainsborough.org

The new Etruscan Galleries at the Fondazione Luigi Rovati in Milan offer a journey through space and time, inviting visitors to enter an underground world of flowing curves and vaulted interiors that bring to mind the ancient civilization's underground architecture. The Italian city's new cultural destination, designed by architect Mario Cucinella, has recently opened to the public, welcoming the exploration of Etruscan treasures and more – as its home, the prominent Milanese foundation, juxtaposes old and new art in a redesigned space on Corso Venezia. 

Mario Cucinella's Etruscan Galleries at Fondazione Luigi Rovati

Cucinella, who was appointed for the renovation and remodelling of Milan’s 19th-century Palazzo Bocconi-Rizzoli-Carraro in 2015, is behind the expressive shapes and dramatic halls of the Etruscan Galleries – but he is also the mastermind composing the Fondazione Luigi Rovati’s two floors of exhibition space above ground, as well as its conservation facilities, an archive, a study room connected with the Luigi Rovati Foundation Library in Monza, event rooms, a bookshop, a café and a restaurant on its top floor.

The Bologna-born architect is an established force in working with site-specific conditions while blending sustainable architecture and eye-catching forms to dramatic effect. To that end, the galleries are made of one elliptical and three circular domed 'caverns'. Cucinella drew inspiration from Etruscan tombs of Cerveteri (in modern day Lazio), using their cavernous formations, which were built in dome shapes carved out of natural bedrock, and translated them into 21st-century museum space. 

The horizontal layers and lines that help create and define the curves are a nod to overlapping, underground earth strata found on those sites – and they are seamlessly made of a single type of stone, pietra serena. At the same time, hidden air circulation mechanisms behind the stone allow for precision control of temperature and humidity in the exhibition halls. 

The historic palazzo (originally composed by the architect Filippo Perego in the first half of the 20th century) was previously damaged by the Second World War and was in need of both a layout refresh and building repairs. The initial commission included an extension too, which was achieved via the excavations two levels beyond ground. The architect and his team worked on the space but also created the exhibition design inside, based on a flexible arrangement of elegant, ethereal, rectangular display cases. 'We are working on some hypotheses,' says Cucinella, 'always with the idea that a museum is not a crystallised space, but an open and hybrid space for culture. Milan is a city that knows how to use this type of space very well.'

mcarchitects.it

fondazioneluigirovati.org

All flowing shapes and gleaming surfaces, the new Orange County Museum of Art by Morphosis is opening its doors this weekend. The cultural destination's fresh home, located on the campus of Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa, California, represents a new era for the institution as well as marking a key anniversary for it. 

‘I can’t imagine a better way to celebrate our 60th anniversary than by inaugurating this magnificent new building with an around-the-clock open house for everyone, including the many new members we welcome into our OCMA family,' said Craig Wells, president of OCMA’s board of trustees. 

The structure was designed by the iconic Culver City-based architecture studio, led by founder and design director Thom Mayne, who oversaw the project together with partner-in-charge Brandon Welling. Employing the practice's signature expressive lines and free-form shapes, the Orange County Museum of Art is certainly impressive. Its sweeping volumes are clad in a skin of high-performance white terracotta tiles and glazed sections, which bring plenty of natural light inside. Exposed concrete, metal panels and careful landscaping complete the building's textures. 

Inside, flexible exhibition galleries meet workspace, dedicated space for educational programming, and public areas that are accessible to all. A café helps create an additional focal point for public activity. At the same time, the composition's external areas (such as the garden and an expansive roof terrace) and large openings (windows, glazed walls and dramatic skylights) ensure there's a strong relationship between indoor and outdoor space, as feels fitting in the warm California climate. 

A ribbon-cutting ceremony took place on 7 October 2022, with the building opening to the public on 8 October, followed by a 24-hour party celebration, including a range of activities for visitors, such as performances, film screenings, art-making workshops, and more. 

INFORMATION

morphosis.com

When I was growing up in Buffalo, New York, it was in a decades-long post-industrial slump, and known mainly for chicken wings, act-of-God blizzards, and a beloved, often heartbreaking football team. But it had a glorious past as one of America’s most prosperous cities, and an exceptional legacy of art and architecture, including the world-renowned Albright-Knox Art Gallery. Now, Buffalo is experiencing a long-awaited rebirth, along with a stunning overhaul for this gem of a cultural institution.

The sixth-oldest museum in the United States, the Albright-Knox Art Gallery was established in 1862 as the Buffalo Fine Arts Academy to showcase the art of its day. Architect Edward Brodhead Green designed its first permanent building, a Greek Revivalist structure inaugurated in 1905, on the edge of the Frederick Law Olmsted-designed Delaware Park. Several visionaries helped make the museum great, including Anson Conger Goodyear, who pushed for the acquisition in 1926 of Picasso’s La Toilette (its nudity temporarily cost him his place on the board). In 1939, Goodyear established the Room of Contemporary Art. ‘That became a boost to the original DNA of “we live with our times”,’ notes current director Janne Sirén, poached from the Helsinki Art Museum in 2013. ‘Or, as the saying goes, “when the paint is still wet”.’ From 1938 onwards, under Seymour H Knox Jr and Gordon M Smith, the museum built up its holdings hungrily and intelligently, acquiring masterpieces by the likes of Matisse, Pollock, Rothko, Bacon, de Kooning and Warhol, and amassing one of the world’s top collections of abstract expressionism, pop art and minimalism. 

To display its acquisitions, the museum commissioned Buffalo native Gordon Bunshaft to design a sleek, modernist glass box with an auditorium in 1962. Renamed the Albright-Knox Art Gallery (after two philanthropists who donated generously to the institution), the museum tripled its collection between 1960 and 2000, again overwhelming the space. (At one point, Sirén had a Cézanne and a Monet hanging in his office.) By the turn of this century, the Bunshaft addition no longer met conservation standards or ADA regulations. Art itself was changing, becoming bigger. The Albright-Knox even lacked a loading dock – Sirén says a crane would hoist larger artworks to an opening in the side of the building: ‘There are pictures of Pollocks literally flying through the air, with four art handlers holding the ropes so they don’t fling too much!’

In 2012, the museum asked Snøhetta to draw up a master plan for a new addition. But when Sirén was hired, he took a step back. Buffalo has a nearly 30 per cent poverty rate, and he wanted to involve the local community in the process. ‘Many people appreciate the Albright-Knox in a castle-on-the-hill way, like, “it’s not my museum”,’ he says. ‘Museums can be many things, but they have to be of, and for, the community.’ He held nine months of town hall meetings, and found that people supported an expansion as long as it did not encroach on the park. During the architecture competition, he told the five finalists: ‘We will ask you to flex your design muscle, but we’re probably not going to build anything you propose, because we’re looking for partners.’ The winner was OMA with the New York office’s Shohei Shigematsu as the partner in charge, for a proposal to build an extension over the Bunshaft courtyard (with executive architects Cooper Robertson), and the humility to throw it away. 

Instead, the new addition is a standalone building located where a parking lot once stood. Last summer, as I drove on the Scajaquada Expressway to visit the site, the three-storey, geometric building suddenly loomed into view on my left. Beyond it, the 1905 building stood like a proud parent, attached by the umbilical cord of a curving bridge. Each floor of the new addition will provide between 7,000 and 9,500 sq ft of exhibition space, with the galleries growing smaller and less defined as you move upwards. The ground floor features a 38ft-high space, while the third floor contains an immense 7,530 sq ft gallery with only two permanent supporting columns.

On the second floor, a sculpture terrace will wrap around the building between the exterior walls and a clear glass curtain wall, offering 360-degree views. Walking on it, I took in Olmsted-era trees, a Jaume Plensa sculpture temporarily wrapped in blue plastic on the lawn, the copper roof crest of the 1905 building, and a new architectural artwork by Studio Other Spaces reflected in the dark glass of the 1962 building. 

Shigematsu says the addition responds to the role of 21st-century museums as drivers of community build-up through art: ‘Our focus was to present those efforts as a sign of openness, by having a space where people can improvise, and activities visible from outside – not about a closed authoritarian façade.’ He explains that they arrived at the shape by creating the core of the building, the ground-floor galleries, like a plus sign, opening up the corners to transparency. ‘If you occupied the ground level with the galleries, then it would become another fortress,’ he says. 

The second floor ‘interstitial’ space behind the glass wall can be used for events. Art that is not susceptible to sunlight can be hung on the exterior gallery walls, visible from the street or park below. ‘I think this promenade space will be amazing,’ says Shigematsu. ‘You can have art on one side and the park on the other, and that’s really embodying the potential of the site and the collection.’

The courtyard of the 1962 building, formerly largely inaccessible to visitors, will now be the Town Square, the heart of the museum’s community engagement programme and free to enter. Olafur Eliasson and Sebastian Behmann of Studio Other Spaces have designed a site-specific artwork to cover it. Called Common Sky, it resembles an enormous glass-and-steel tree. ‘There’s an element of social consciousness,’ explains Eliasson, ‘and of bringing the outside and the weather in, and all of that kaleidoscopically.’ At the underground parking entrance, visitors will encounter another commissioned artwork, a digitally-designed tapestry by Swedish artist Miriam Bäckström. 

The museum is slated to reopen in spring 2023 with a show highlighting the permanent collection and a new name, the Buffalo AKG Art Museum. The ‘G’ stands for Jeffrey Gundlach, a Buffalo native and financier who ended up donating $65m of the roughly $190m budget. The scale of the project would not have been possible otherwise, says Sirén: ‘It’s been a Buffalo Bills game, where we move the ball down the field one yard at a time,’ he says, laughing. ‘Several touchdowns.’ 

INFORMATION

oma.com

buffaloakg.org

cooperrobertson.com

Mexico’s many claims to fame include a rich culture, a long history and dramatic landscapes. It is lesser known, however, as the site of an important event that changed life on Earth for ever. Yet it is here that the asteroid that is thought to have killed the dinosaurs landed, heralding a new era for the planet and leaving in its path what today is known as the Chicxulub crater. Located on the Yucatán Peninsula, this geological formation was the result of an impact that happened 66 million years ago. It is also the inspiration for a new museum in the small seaside town of Progreso, designed by Estudio MMX, a dynamic and relatively young Mexico City-based practice founded in 2010 by architects Jorge Arvizu, Ignacio del Río, Emmanuel Ramírez and Diego Ricalde. 

Created as part of an ambitious national scheme called Programa de Mejoramiento Urbano (PMU), or Urban Improvement Programme, which kick-starts public projects and cultural interventions in cities across the country, the new Geology Museum focuses on the region’s rich history in the field. 

Openings allow the sea breeze to travel across the site, helping to cool the building naturally, and making the structure more resilient to the hurricanes that often hit Progreso in the summer

The initial plan was to build a new cultural building for Progreso, but its exact use was unclear at the start of the project in 2019: ‘They told us, there is an opportunity to make this cultural space, in this part of Yucatán. We were put forward as the architects for this site as well as another project, the market in neighbouring Chicxulub,’ Ricalde recalls. ‘Because of the crater of the asteroid that hit the Earth and extinguished the dinosaurs, it was then decided to do something around geology.’ 

This is a rural and fertile part of the country, both in nature and history. Yucatán’s capital, Mérida, is just 50km south and the area is filled with mangroves and dotted with sandy strips and Mayan and colonial heritage sites. It also used to be the main producer of henequen, a variety of the agave plant often referred to as ‘green gold’ for its uses in the textile industry. Both the geology of the impact crater and the existing natural environment played a key role in the design development of the new museum. Its distinct form is composed as a sequence of discrete yet interconnected square-ish volumes set on a strict, geometric grid spread across the length and width of the site. The angled arches and overall monolithic and stepped character of the volumes reference ancient Mayan architecture, the architects explain. 

The museum includes a series of water features inspired by Yucatán’s cenotes, the sinkholes created by the asteroid impact 66 million years ago 

The building is covered in a type of plaster called chukum, a traditional material made with the powdered bark of a small thorny tree of the same name. It allows for great detailing, is locally produced, naturally water-resistant, and soft to the touch. ‘It fits the city’s urban image, as well as the landscape’s colours, and its light tone reflects the sunrays and helps control the heat,’ Ricalde explains. ‘As for the grid, it is a very common feature in the cities in this part of Mexico, many of which were built around orthogonal grids.’ 

Inside, the building has space for offices, temporary and permanent exhibitions, a café and multifunctional areas for workshops, educational programmes and events. ‘As we didn’t know from the start what exactly would be housed within, we had to design the building to be flexible,’ the architect says. 

Ricalde also points out that the height of each volume is designed so that there is an undulation, abstractly referencing the topography of a crater. At the same time, openings underneath some of these elements allow the sea breeze to travel across the site, cooling down the building naturally, while a green garden below invites the local wildlife in, offering a mix of water features and native plants. The fact that much of the building is lifted above ground level also helps it negotiate rising water, as the area is prone to flooding. And thick shading created by the various, closely knit spaces is welcome in the outdoor public space as it protects it from the sun in this typically hot region. 

The museum is spread in a series of blocks arranged in a grid. Their triangular openings recall the shape of the region’s Mayan pyramids

While the site is big, the building is not very tall, ensuring that it does not block the views towards the sea or dominate the lower urban fabric around it. ‘There are many hurricanes in the summer season and so, instead of making one big solid building that would ‘fight’ the winds, by breaking it down, the winds can feel softer and the building is more resilient,’ the architect continues.‘The vegetation was also important to us. We love incorporating plants in architecture, and we are very interested in the relationship between landscape and architecture. The species selection was done carefully so the design would act according to our intentions, saving existing palms while avoiding inserting non-native species or creating maintenance issues. It’s very important for us in every project, but particularly in this one, as previously the site hosted what was an open public space. In our view, the city did not lose a park – it gained a museum.’ 

INFORMATION

mmx.com.mx

The Refugee Museum of Denmark (FLUGT) has officially opened its doors after a formal inauguration ceremony in the presence of Queen Margrethe II. Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) and exhibition designer Tinker Imagineers are at the helm of the museum, which has opened on the site of Denmark’s largest refugee camp from the Second World War.

The new museum aims to share the stories of refugees worldwide, and portrays challenges through an exploration of archeology and the gathering of local historical knowledge. For BIG, which rethought and extended the camp’s original hospital building to create the new space, the project is its second for the museum’s operator Vardemuseerne, after the opening of the west coast of Denmark’s Tirpitz Museum.

‘The Refugee Museum of Denmark explores an important part of our history and a theme that is more relevant than ever, with millions of refugees currently displaced from their homes,’ says founding partner of BIG, Bjarke Ingels. ‘We have designed an architectural framework that connects the past with the present – with a new building directly shaped by its relationship to the historic hospital buildings of the Second World War refugee camp. We went into this project with all our heart, to address one of the world’s greatest challenges – how we welcome and care for our fellow world citizens when they are forced to flee. The project is a continuation of our collaboration on Tirpitz Museum with Vardemuseerne and [its museum director] Claus Kjeld Jensen, whose uncompromised design vision once again inspired our design for FLUGT.’

The two buildings that originally contained the former hospital are connected by soft curves, creating an undulating and welcome silhouette. An amalgamation of textures, from steel to the red bricks of the original hospital building and a curved wall of glass, imbues the space with a rich tactility.

‘FLUGT – Refugee Museum of Denmark will share and uncover the stories of the largest refugee camp in Denmark, as well as the story of the lived refugee experience of our time,’ adds Kjeld Jensen.

‘FLUGT seeks to give a voice and a face to humans who have been forced to flee their homes and capture the universal challenges, emotions and nuances shared by refugees then and today.’ 

INFORMATION

big.dk

Following five years of preparation, the building for the Photo Elysée and Mudac in Lausanne has now been completed. The structure, an elegant concrete building defined by minimalist architecture geometries and a robust look, is the brainchild of Portuguese architect Manuel Aires Mateus and his Lisbon-based team. Part of the city's growing art district, this museum hub is a key cultural destination for Lausanne, and Switzerland as a whole. 

Right from the outset and the studio's competition entry, Aires Mateus’ design united the two museums and their collections and programmes seamlessly in a single building. The organisers explain: ‘A “box” for photography, a “box” for design, united by a meeting space, a place for living together, as an extension of the public space, in the perspective of Plateforme 10. An invitation to a walk.'

Spanning more than 1,500 sq m of exhibition space and a wealth of outdoor areas in the form of green gardens, patios and a green roof, the project is set to become a hub of cultural and social activity for the city. The complex consists of two interconnected wings that offer ample, clean exhibition halls. A dramatic central staircase not only connects the two sections of the building programme but also offers a sense of arrival, monumentality and clarity in the arrangement's vision. 

Light played a key role in sculpting the forms inside and out. Skylights, strategically placed slits on the wall and larger openings come together to create a masterfully illuminated interior. ‘We wanted visitors, no matter where they stand in the foyer, to always be in plain view, with the impression of being outside. Our aim was to trigger a particular spatial sensation. For us, this was the architecture’s main role,' says Aires Mateus.

Meanwhile, a café, a library and a bookshop complement the flexible exhibition areas, making this a functional and considered whole. ‘The halls have to be neutral enough to allow for frequent changes in the scenography. We designed a foyer with well-defined spaces, while the exhibition areas remain open to allow for free use,' the architect adds.

INFORMATION

airesmateus.com

The new Oslo National Museum is the latest mega project to open along the Norwegian capital's increasingly buzzing waterfront in the past couple of years. However, unlike its most recent predecessor, the kookily slanted-at-the-top Munch museum, its arrival and presence is more muted. And this despite its whopping 54,600 sq m size and impressive £510m price tag. Composed of a low-slung structure that gets taller as it moves away from the harbour in line with the surrounding streetscape, it is topped by a translucent volume to the fore and a darker volume behind it. At the front it joins up with two existing 19th-century former railway buildings (one of which is now the Nobel Peace Prize museum), forming a new piazza that leads to the entrance foyer. It is at once a monumental and encyclopaedic museum for the 21st century, bringing together the collections of five existing city institutions dedicated to art, architecture and design – yet it is somehow also modest and minimal.

Lead architect Naples-based Klaus Schuwerk (who won the competition with Berlin office Kleihues + Kleihues), credits the city he lives in, a place where there is no fake architecture, he says, and his architectural forefathers over thousands of years for the building’s design. In particular, he cites Leon Battista Alberti, Karl Friedrich Schinkel and Mies van der Rohe, without which this building would have been ‘unthinkable'. A Norwegian newspaper coined the term ‘low-key monumentality’ in relation to the project and Schuwerk liked this definition because, for him, monumentality is not about something being ‘gigantic' but about something ‘that will remain for a long time', something that has meaning and presence.

A lot of the building’s allure and appeal is in fact its aura of calm and solidity in an urban area characterised by visual and architectural diversity and some messiness. The choice of an often local, sometimes noble, and always durable palette of materials plays an important role. A southern German shell limestone was selected for the floors of the public areas, while oak boards are used in the exhibition rooms. Elsewhere, marble can be seen around the windows in the exhibition areas and the windows and oak doors have bronze casings and door handles and fittings respectively. The real material protagonist, or ‘player' as Schuwerk puts it, is a decorative slate from Oppdal in central Norway that was chosen for the façade and vestibule cladding. ‘This stone is what most of Norway is made of but you don’t see it look like this,' says Schuwerk. ‘Usually, it's cut horizontally and then it's a bit cloudy but we cut it vertically across the grain so you see all these layers inside the stone. Within each layer, there are millions of years of Norwegian history.'

Internally the exhibition rooms feature wooden floors and light-filled ceilings, while the central foyers or atriums on each floor have stone floors and textile ceilings. There are tantalising framed views through the galleries, into internal courtyards that contain sculptural works, or up long and elegant staircases, that provide a visual rest and change of pace, a necessity in a building with some 90 rooms, or 13,000 sq m, dedicated to permanent and temporary exhibitions. As well as a publicly accessible art library, two cafés, a fairly discreet yet large museum shop, an auditorium and several meeting rooms, the building, unusually for a city centre museum, also manages to house conservation studios, a photography studio and storage space for most of the museum’s 400,000-plus collection of objects.

The top floor contains the Light Hall, a 133m-long space with walls made of marble glass (thin sheets of Portuguese marble laminated between two sheets of glass) that will be used for temporary exhibitions and sits atop a plinth of grey slate. With the 7m-high ceilings, the atmosphere here is uplifting and luminescent in the daytime, and beacon-like at night, when 9,000 LED diodes highlight its veined patterns to great effect. Perhaps surprisingly, no art can be hung on the walls here, but it is a space that could accommodate dramatic large-scale sculptures or site-specific installations in a way few other venues can and it leads onto an expansive roof terrace that can accommodate more art and events.

It’s no secret that the architect and museum have had a difficult relationship at times, partly due to the former’s uncompromising approach, and that construction delays and escalating costs have also caused controversy. Schuwerk has asked for a clarification to be published on the museum’s website about aspects of the project he says he didn’t author. It’s mainly things like the wayfinding and signage (inside and out), the benches in the exhibition areas, the digital monitors in the entrance foyer and a lot of the furniture, which he feels don’t fit with the architectural vision. He objects to the first-floor café too, saying this was a last-minute addition and there is a proper restaurant space downstairs. There has been some bemusement about his stance, as these things appear fairly small fry to many. 

Yet despite all the ‘noise’ around the project’s inception, the core idea and tone of the building are intact, inside and out. It’s a credit to both the architect’s determination regarding certain material and design choices (the sumptuous marble-clad toilets on the lower-ground floor are a good example of his perseverance), and the museum’s willingness to see it through, that this is the case. Most importantly, however, this is a building that feels comfortable and even inspiring to be in, and solid enough that it should still be here in hundreds of years’ time.

INFORMATION

kleihues.com

A new museum and centre for culture and community, Bët-bi is to open its doors in Senegal in early 2025, the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation and Le Korsa have announced. Architect Mariam Issoufou Kamara, founder of architecture practice Atelier Masōmī in Niger, has been selected by a jury from a shortlist of four African architectural firms to lead the design.

‘It is a great honour and a privilege to be selected to lead the design of Bët-bi,’ Kamara says. ‘For far too long our region has been a place where cultural wealth is pillaged to profit museum collections. This project is an opportunity to design a new type of space that is inspired by the roots and spiritual legacy of the region. It is a chance to push the boundaries of what defines a museum in the 21st century.’

Bët-bi – or ‘the eye’ in Wolof – will be a state-of-the-art museum in the southwestern part of Senegal, in West Africa, with the 1,000 sq m space comprising an exhibition and events space, a library and community rooms.

The new space will be built using sustainable and traditional methods, and created with local artisans. An emphasis on communal spaces and an inclusive environment will incorporate a nod to the heritage of the area, with a design that pays tribute to the historical significance of the area’s ancient stone megaliths and four Unesco World Heritage sites. Kamara will honour both this local history and the people themselves, who have occupied the area since the 11th century, in her design celebrating the connection they feel with the land, sun and water.

‘We approached this project through a look back at the site’s past,’ Kamara adds. ‘We looked at the history of the Saloum Kingdom very closely and have been absolutely fascinated by its origin story, as a place jointly founded by the Serer and the Mandinka people. The latter are historically a people from the Mali empire, who are known for their monumental architecture. As museums and galleries are a product of our more recent past, it is important for me that the project serves as a bold imperative to continue the recent dialogue around rethinking the typology in order to explore new spatial languages around museums.’

Bët-bi will partner with institutions across Africa to showcase both historic and modern African art as well as act as a temporary space for repatriated objects, until the homes to which they rightfully belong have the ability to conserve them.

‘We are thrilled with Mariam Kamara as the unanimous choice of our distinguished architectural jury,’ says executive director of the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation and founder and president of Le Korsa, Nicholas Fox Weber. ‘Her profound respect for local traditions, keen awareness and knowledge of environmental impact, and eye for visual beauty will result in a building sure to help revitalise the economy of the region, providing the benefits well demonstrated by other new cultural institutions in locations with minimal previous tourism. Bët-bi will demonstrate Josef Albers' maxim of ‘minimal means for maximum effect’ and Anni Albers' faith in ‘art that is universal and timeless’.’

INFORMATION
betbi.org

ateliermasomi.com

After a four year renovation and expansion project, the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego (MCASD) has once again reopened its doors. Selldorf Architects has taken the helm on the project, which now offers four times the amount of gallery space, two levels of galleries and a public park, as well as giving access to stunning views over the Pacific Coast.

The opening marks the culmination of a project which began in 2014, when Selldorf Architects planned to not only increase the gallery space from the existing 10,000 square feet to 40,000 square feet, but also allow for both MCASD’s permanent collections and visiting exhibitions.

Annabelle Selldorf on the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego

‘With the Selldorf expansion, MCASD’s flagship building is, at last, scaled to showcase the work it has collected over the past decades,’ says Kathryn Kanjo, director and CEO of MCASD. ‘Soaring ceilings and natural light allow for inviting displays of the collection alongside lively changing exhibitions. The design honours the Museum’s rich architectural history as it frames distinctive views of the village and the coast, providing an updated space for the art and for today’s audience.’

For principal architect Annabelle Selldorf, the goal was both to install an inclusive spirit in the design, and make the most of the dramatic location on the La Jolla coastline, with new seaside terraces offering views over the Pacific Ocean. ‘The addition to MCASD provides new gallery space to the south of the existing buildings,’ she says. ‘In shifting the centre of gravity and entry sequence, we were able to knit together different geometries and achieve an overall volume of the museum that reads as one and nevertheless respects the presence of architectural expressions of multiple generations of the institution.’

By working in harmony with the location, the design ultimately opens up the gallery to the elements, making for an open and welcoming space. Kanjo adds: ‘The architecture connects the experience of art to the experience of nature in a way that didn’t previously exist. The design rejects the notion of the hermetically sealed white cube and instead brings the outdoors into the museum space. Selldorf Architects has opened up MCASD and let in the light.’ 

INFORMATION

mcasd.org

Looking at it peeking through the Dubai skyline, it feels clear that the Museum of the Future was not designed to be subtle; rather, it was designed to celebrate and shout about human achievement and the innovation that guides humankind into the future. Housed in a suitably eye-catching building, rounded, gleaming and adorned with Arabic calligraphic inscriptions, this new cultural destination in the UAE turns the idea of a museum on its head. Instead of being a home for historical artefacts, it is an experimental space, hailed as a hub to inspire the future of humanity. The brainchild of the Dubai Future Foundation and architect Shaun Killa of Killa Design, the project will house a permanent exhibition of human technology and creative thinking; and it opens its doors to the public today (22 February 2022). 

The building was conceived by Killa ‘as an architectural and cultural icon’, and it's true that its striking, shimmering volume is as memorable as it is dramatic. The architect composed its flowing form using computer-aided design, harnessing state-of-the-art technology in volume shaping and futuristic visions of architecture to achieve his goal. The result is an impressive 77m high, seven-storey toroidal structure built without using a single column. 

Museum of the Future

The glistening structure is clad in stainless steel panels manufactured by robots that produced the pattern that makes up its skin – lines of Arabic calligraphy representing three quotes on the future by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, vice president and prime minister of the UAE and ruler of Dubai. These say: ‘We may not live for hundreds of years, but the products of our creativity can leave a legacy long after we are gone’; ‘The future belongs to those who can imagine it, design it, and execute it. It isn’t something you await, but rather create'; and ‘Innovation is not an intellectual luxury. It is the secret behind the evolution and rejuvenation of nations and peoples’.

Made using technologically advanced building methods, the Museum of the Future also employs modern sustainable architecture strategies, such as solar power (the structure is powered through its own dedicated solar park). Inside, a multipurpose hall sits at the core of the building, surrounded by further spaces including a lecture hall, innovation laboratories for health, education, smart cities, energy and transportation, and permanent exhibition areas. 

‘The Museum of the Future is a “living museum”, constantly adapting and metamorphosing as its very environment drives continual and iterative change to its exhibits and attractions,’ says Mohammed Al Gergawi, UAE minister for cabinet affairs and chairman of the Dubai Future Foundation. ‘The museum brings together futurists, thinkers, innovators and the public in a testbed of ideas that define the world of the future and shape the way we interact with our world to come.’ 

INFORMATION

killadesign.com

Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Atchugarry (MACA), Uruguay’s new contemporary art venue, has just opened its doors to the public. The major cultural destination, spearheaded by the Pablo Atchugarry Foundation, the Uruguayan sculptor’s Miami-based non-profit institution, has been designed by celebrated Uruguayan architect Carlos Ott. The new scheme, located in Punta del Este, is the ‘first and only museum in Uruguay promoting global contemporary art’, say its representatives. 

The building unfolds as a dynamic wave or the bow of a ship, a curvaceous structure that appears almost to be moving on its landscaped terrain. It is wrapped in glass- and aluminium-clad enclosures that shimmer in the sun, and an aluminium roof that is held up by an impressive timber frame construction, made of Red Grandis eucalyptus. The sweeping curves of the timber elements cleverly allow for column-free interiors and large halls that can be flexible and accommodate exhibitions of different scales. 

Set in expansive grounds, the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Atchugarry opened with fresh artwork by Atchugarry himself, but also a temporary show of work by Christo and Jeanne-Claude – whom the sculptor admires greatly. There are also shows with works from the permanent collection, by artists including Richard Anuszkiewicz, Carmelo Arden Quin, Pablo Atchugarry, José Pedro Costigliolo, Carlos Cruz Diez, Sandú Darié, Jorge Eielson and Wifredo Lam, among many others. Displays are arranged across five flexible exhibition halls and a sculpture park – catering for outdoor art of all scopes and sizes.

‘There is a common concern among artists and collectors, which consists in thinking about where their works will go, the fruit of a lifetime, the passion that has always accompanied them,’ says Atchugarry, who led the project. ‘So, a few years ago, the idea of building a museum was born, right within the Pablo Atchugarry Foundation, which is in some way the cultural heritage that I leave for Uruguay. I think that MACA will belong to humanity and that, like a ship loaded with art, life and dreams, it will lead us to a world of greater understanding and love.’ The museum will be headed by director Leonardo Noguéz. 

INFORMATION 

carlosott.com

Few places rival the intensity of Doha. Even in late November, your face is cocooned in heat; the horizon wobbles, sizzles and steams. Somewhere between England and Qatar, the colours have turned from green to gold. Doha emerges like a gilded, water-encircled canvas, primed for anyone with a creative vision as vast as its landscape. 

I’m with a small group of journalists at the invitation of Qatar Museums. We’re here to witness the fruits of the country's cultural transformation; one born with the discovery of oil in the mid-20th century, and that has since evolved into a contemporary Renaissance that has the attention of the world. 

Day 1 in Doha: Jeff Koons, lunch at the Culture Pass Club, Christian Dior

At Qatar Museums’ Gallery Al Riwaq, we find Jeff Koons: ‘Lost in America’. This is the artist’s first show in the Gulf, and its significance is not lost on Qatar.

Curated by Massimiliano Gioni, the show is presented as part of the Qatar-United States 2021 Year of Culture. Koons has conceived it as an expanded self-portrait of sorts. We’re greeted by a photograph of him aged five, earnest, doe-eyed, and with that unmistakable, ready-made beam that’s followed him throughout his career. He wears the same expression at the press conference, where he quotes The Beatles’ ‘I am the Walrus’: ‘I am he as you are he as you are me’, and reasserts his well-trodden principles: transcendence, transformation and self-acceptance.

These days, the locations of Koons’ exhibitions feel just as significant as their contents. As a concession to regional norms, the show is devoid of the raunchier facets of his work, yet it doesn’t feel deprived. 

The sheer enormity of the museum means the pieces are socially distanced. Until now, I had never quite appreciated the extent of Koons’ calculating precision, his ability to optically toy with the viewer and suspend disbelief. He metamorphoses materials: bronze resembles vinyl, plaster looks like a cotton-covered inflatable, and, in his newest works, marble is dressed down as though an oversized ceramic trinket. These replicas of replicas reflect just how easily we fall for artifices; rather than critiquing consumerism, they celebrate it. 

At lunchtime, we head to Qatar’s first members-only arts club, Culture Pass Club. Think Soho House, but if every house consisted of multiple houses encircling an idyllic courtyard and had interiors by the likes of India Mahdavi, Rossana Orlandi and leading local designers including Aisha Al-Sowaidi and Wadha Al Hajri. 

Next on the itinerary is M7, Qatar’s 312,000 sq ft hub for fashion and design innovation. Earlier in November, the fashion world elite gathered at the art centre for the Fashion Trust Arabia prize, recognising emerging talent in the Middle East and North Africa region. 

Following a momentary distraction from a thorny Isa Genzken sculpture in M7’s atrium, we shift our focus to ‘Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams’. It’s a reinvention of a resoundingly successful exhibition that previously showed in Paris, London, Shanghai and New York, and features pieces from the private collection of Her Highness Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, mother of the Emir and long-time Dior client. 

In the evening, we head back to Gallery Al Riwaq for the ‘Lost in America’ reception. It’s disorientating and refreshing to mingle at an art world vernissage unaccompanied by flutes of champagne (In deference to Sharia law, the Qatari government places strict restrictions on the availability of alcohol). But what it lacks in booze, Qatar makes up for in juice, offered liberally, and in most shades of the rainbow. Armed with hyper-real sobriety and tripping on a sugar high, we’re all ready to focus on the art. 

It’s dinnertime, and presumably owing to good behaviour, we’ve been invited by Her Excellency Sheikha Al Mayassa Bint Hamad Al-Thani, chairperson of Qatar Museums (and cultural arbiter of the nation) to attend the official dinner for Koons. I’m sartorially ill-prepared for the occasion, but manage to dress up my practical desert-wear to a passable standard. 

We’re ushered to a palatial first-floor courtyard at the IM Pei-designed Museum of Islamic Art – which is officially closed for renovation. The architect, who was 91 when he was coaxed out of retirement for the project, was given free rein to choose any spot in Doha for the museum, and he insisted that future buildings could not encroach on its space. The solution? Qatar gave the building its own island. 

There’s more multicoloured juice on silver platters, and American-themed food on the menu. There’s also a photo booth for the star-studded guest list. (Photo booth is an understatement, I mean a self-contained studio where Brigitte Lacombe, portraitist to superstars, is taking the photographs).

After dinner, we’re taken to the underground conservation laboratory. An expert restorer shows us to his workstation, where the magic is happening. We swarm like insatiable magpies around a falcon from 17th-century India: solid gold and laden in rubies, emeralds, diamonds and sapphires. It’s impossibly beautiful, priceless beyond comprehension, and shimmers to the point of hypnosis. Suddenly, this begins to feel rather familiar – Jeff Koons would be all over this! Right on cue, he arrives at the lab for a closer look. 

Day 2: Sport, Virgil Abloh, a history of Qatar

I have a hangover. Not the post-alcohol kind, but a juice-induced sugar comedown of epic proportions. But enough whining, it’s time for sport. 

Today is the first day of the inaugural Qatar Grand Prix Formula One and sport is on the agenda. Around Doha, construction is in abundance as Qatar spruces up to host the 2022 World Cup, which will kick off in precisely one year. It’s a palpably exciting crescendo, but has not been without controversy. Qatar’s treatment of migrant workers responsible for World Cup-related infrastructure has been under intense scrutiny. The Qatari government disputed a 16 November 2021 report by Amnesty International claiming that labour reforms have not translated into changes on the ground, but also stated that ‘Qatar has never shied away from acknowledging that its labour system is still a work in progress.’ 

We are treated to a preview tour of the soon-to-open 3-2-1 Qatar Olympic and Sports Museum, sited adjacent to the Khalifa International Stadium. As an arts journalist, I’m a little out of my depth, but nonetheless an eager student. The museum aims to educate and entertain, offering a history of Qatari sport while providing family-focused interactive games to encourage physical activity. 

Next, we head to the W Hotel for another dose of Jeff Koons. This time, he’s in conversation with Sheikha Al Mayassa as part of the Art for Tomorrow Talks, in association with The New York Times. Just as I reflect on how, in the last three months, I have spent more time in the physical presence of Koons than I have my own mother, it’s time for art by Virgil Abloh. 

Like Koons’, this is Abloh’s first museum exhibition in the Middle East. Held at Fire Station, an arts hub and artist residency centre, ‘Figures of Speech’ offers a deep dive into Abloh's pioneering media practice spanning visual arts, music, fashion, architecture and design. (Since our visit, the show – a mid-career retrospective  – has taken on a new poignancy. On Sunday 28 November, in a moment that shook the world, the celebrated artist Virgil Abloh passed away from a rare cancer, aged 41.)  

The next stop is the Jean Nouvel-designed National Museum of Qatar, which blooms from the landscape like a desert rose. This extraordinary building comprises flying saucer-like discs of varying diameters, which engulf the restored palace of Sheikh Abdullah bin Jassim Al Thani, son of the founder of modern Qatar.

The galleries tell us about the history of Qatar, without following the conventional museum formula. Here, everything from the natural history of the Persian Gulf to the establishment of the Qatari state, and to the discovery of oil is narrated via innovative audiovisual elements, seamlessly integrated into Nouvel’s design. The museum celebrates the heritage of Qatar, but also puts a spotlight on its rapid modernisation, growth and extraordinary cultural change. 

We head back to the hotel on Doha’s gleaming new UNStudio-designed metro. Completed in 2019, the network is divided into three travel sections: Standard, Family (for solo women and anyone commuting with children) and Gold (for Goldclub Travel Card holders). Boasting rapid speeds, onboard Wi-Fi and USB charging for Goldclub members, this is surely the envy of the subterranean world, and makes most of the London Underground look and smell like Dante’s Inferno. 

Day 3: Kader Attia, a palace of books, and the desert sun set on Richard Serra

We arrive at Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art. Following a momentary malfunction of the Ehteraz app (Qatar’s mandatory Covid-19 contact-tracing service), I’m soon in the clutches of ‘Kader Attia: On Silence’, a show of staggering scale, depth and intensity. Attia turns his focus to the complex histories of the Middle East and North Africa, and Doha itself, a multicultural global city of migration and constant social and political evolution.

At the centre of the show is the title work, On Silence. One of two new commissions for the exhibition, it comprises a room filled with prostheses suspended from the ceiling. Though unsettling in their number, they are presented as objects of restoration and optimism for those who have lost limbs in conflict. Attia uses silence as a vehicle for communication: silence to cut through the noise of human suffering (colonialism, political oppression and environmental devastation), enforced silence as a catalyst for trauma, voluntary silence as a conduit to reckoning and repair. 

In the 1970s, Doha was but a few modest buildings surrounded by desert. Its statement piece was the spaceship-esque Sheraton Hotel, a striking example of modernism by architect William L Pereira (who also designed San Francisco’s Transamerica Pyramid) that perfectly straddles utopia and dystopia. These days, the skyline is a tapestry of architectural delights, particularly in the Education City.

We’re here to visit the Rem Koolhaas-designed Qatar National Library, a vast, tiered, glass-clad palace of books and artefacts fit for the digital age. This high-tech sanctuary for research also functions as a custodian of Qatar’s heritage by preserving and making accessible the country’s recorded history. 

As the sun sets on our tour of Doha, there is one final stop, the middle of the desert. Our Jurassic Park-style off-roaders jiggle over the undulating dunes through the Brouq Nature Reserve. After 20 minutes of dizzying motion, we reach our destination: a natural corridor formed by gypsum plateaus, home to one of the most triumphant examples of public art: Richard Serra’s East-West/West-East (2014). The installation comprises four vertiginous slabs of Corten steel, each 14m high, with rusted-matte surfaces absorbing the ethereal orange sun.

Spanning more than a kilometre, East-West/West-East slices up the sky like an oversized game of dominoes being played by some higher, much larger power. If an epiphany could occur anywhere, it’s surely here.

INFORMATION
qm.org.qa

Narbo Via, a museum of Roman antiquities designed by Foster + Partners, is about to launch in Narbonne. Opening in an official ceremony tomorrow (11 December 2021), the brand new cultural draw for the region is set to become a landmark destination for its city, located on the Canal de la Robine in southern France. 

The museum’s low, linear volume is raised on a podium, balancing ‘civic monumentality’, the architects say, with restraint. It is placed among lush, green architectural gardens and landscaping including an outdoor theatre, embedding the new structure into its surroundings. Stone mixes with steel and a distinctive concrete roof, making for a building that appears strong and firmly linked to the earth and its site. 

And while the exterior is defined by its relatively discreet, yet confident, presence, the interior clearly and unashamedly celebrates its content by placing it centre stage through the presence of a ‘Lapidary Wall’, a shelving grid featuring stone displays that belong to the collection. This architectural element is open for all to see, cleverly separating public galleries and restoration spaces where specialists are at work to preserve the museum’s precious cargo. Visitors can catch glimpses of the professionals at work through this semi-permeable wall that places the collection at the design’s heart.

The project also includes an array of public-facing spaces, such as galleries for permanent and temporary exhibitions, a multimedia education centre, an auditorium, a restaurant and a bookshop. Research, restoration and storage facilities, as well as offices, complete the building, which is brightly lit through swathes of glass in openings and floor-to-ceiling transparent walls. 

Foster + Partners has recently completed more work in France – namely the winery Le Dôme, which opened its doors to visitors a couple of months ago. It sits alongside older, iconic projects from the firm’s portfolio, such as the Millau Viaduct and the Carré d’Art in Nîmes. ‘Our work on Narbo Via extends a long relationship between the Foster studio and the south of France. The arts are vital to the life of a city, and a cultural building has the potential to reinvent and regenerate its “sense of place”, to break down physical and social barriers. Bringing together the old and the new, Narbo Via will renew the image of the museum, becoming not just a place for reflection but a creator of knowledge for future generations,’ says the practice’s renowned founder and executive chairman, Norman Foster. 

Looking to the future, the Narbo Via building also employs a comprehensive sustainability strategy. This, the architects note, has been inspired by ancient Roman technology. Natural ventilation is achieved through the clever concrete ceiling structure that helps push air to circulate throughout the interior, supporting a healthy environment for visitors, as well as its rich collection of Roman antiquities. 

INFORMATION

fosterandpartners.com

V-A-C Foundation’s GES-2 House of Culture opened on 3 December 2021 in Moscow, adjacent to the Kremlin. Designed by Renzo Piano and over a decade in the making, the reworked former power station – known as GES-2 – is free of charge and includes space for workshops, performance and exhibitions. It opens with the season ‘Santa Barbara: How Not to be Colonised’, which includes a site-specific performance work and exhibition from Icelandic artist Ragnar Kjartansson and a group show, ‘When Gondola Engines Were Taken to Bits: A Carnival in Four Acts’, alongside a programme of workshops and performances. 

‘It is conceptual, philosophical… To make a place that is accessible to everybody,’ says Piano. ‘It’s fundamentally this concept philosophically that is the House of Culture. Moscow badly needs this sort of place.’

An addition to the foundation’s Venice space, the 41,000 sq m building on the bank of the Moscow River is the brainchild of V-A-C founders Teresa Iarocci Mavica and Leonid Mikhelson, who is also its billionaire backer. Based on the idea of a Soviet House of Culture, GES-2 aims to provide space for cultural production and for people to gather and exchange ideas. Costs remain undisclosed but are rumoured to far exceed £300 million. 

The building houses communal space, a cinema and an adaptable performance area that is able to cater to many uses. Piano kept the integrity of the building, replacing only the roof with glass, flooding the knave with natural light. The structure was also lifted to add ceiling height to the spacious subterranean exhibition area, which opens out into a double-height space that spans up to the roof. By using small cells on the roof to disperse the light, he created a kind of diffused, dappled effect.

‘Light is essential, but it’s not the only thing. There is also transparency, the sense of openness and accessibility, and to do this in Moscow is especially important,’ says Piano. The original chimneys have been replaced with 70m-high pipes that bring in clean air in an ecologically conscious air-conditioning system, by drawing in fresh air from above Moscow’s pollution. 

The space is entirely white and grey, echoing the wintery Muscovite palette outside – save for the Matisse blue of the pipes and the original green of the cherry picker, a hangover from the building’s previous life, left in situ in the entrance hall. These elements combine to create an open and welcoming building, a place that aims to bring together the people who use it – whether to sit, think, enjoy the art and entertainment on view or contribute to it. ‘When you’re experiencing culture with a small “c”, where you meet people, you know you’ve built something really beautiful, a sense of community and conviviality,’ Piano concludes. 

INFORMATION

rpbw.com

v-a-c.org

The Design Museum has marked its fifth anniversary with a virtual experience which brings extreme climate change to London. The Landmarker project, in partnership with Snap, invites visitors to view the building through a Snapchat filter which imagines an apocalyptic alternative reality.

Architect Mariam Issoufou Kamara worked with Snap’s AR technology to bring the project to life. ‘For an architect whose practice is in a desert country like Niger, the effects of the climate crisis are already all around us through increased droughts, floods, and even climate refugees,’ she says. ‘This collaboration with the Design Museum and Snap, really allowed me to explore a future where the climate has changed drastically, a new normal if you will. I wanted to use the facade of the Design Museum to explore how the built environment might respond to harsh conditions, and how we could perhaps put buildings to use in order to serve new needs under extreme conditions.’

In line with the transformation of the environment depicted in the filter, the building’s materials will also transform, for an optimistic look at how buildings can adapt to the demands of their environments. For chief curator of the Design Museum, Justin McGuirk, the filter is a chance to explore how existing structures can be a part of the climate change response. ‘The imaginative re-use of existing structures needs to be at the heart of a climate-conscious architecture,’ he says. ‘And since augmented reality is such an engaging way of reimagining buildings, we are delighted to be partnering with Snap and Mariam Kamara to explore how our own home might be adapted in the future. What better way to celebrate the Design Museum’s birthday, and the revival of a much-loved building, than to keep visualising alternative futures for it.’

INFORMATION

designmuseum.org
snap.com

The Garage Museum of Contemporary Art has announced that Japanese architecture firm SANAA will oversee the renovation of the Hexagon pavilion, converting the disused Moscow landmark into a major new exhibition hub. The Garage Museum extension heralds a new chapter for the museum in its ongoing efforts to repurpose architectural heritage in the city and revitalise it in a contemporary context.

The Hexagon – a listed 1920s Soviet structure designed by Russian architect Ivan Zholtovsky – has lived many lives. Originally constructed for 1923’s First All-Russian Agricultural and Handicraft Industries Exhibition, the pavilion was converted into a canteen in 1935 and repurposed for lemonade production in the 1960s. In the decades that followed, it served as a café, a restaurant, a beer garden, a cinema and a disco, until it was abandoned. The Hexagon today stands partially ruined following a series of fires.

In its newest incarnation as an exhibition centre, the Hexagon will encompass three galleries, a library, a bookstore, a café and a courtyard spanning some 9,500 sq m of functional space. ‘In keeping with the spirit of Zholtovsky’s original design, we tried to avoid partitions or different types of organisations within the space and tried to bring it back to his vision,’ explained the architects. ‘We were fascinated by the original transparency of the space. The Hexagon has a particular charm and we have tried to retain that in our design.’

To wit, SANNA’s concept is guided by six principles: geometry and proportion; connected spaces; daylight; spatial organisation; decorative and interior elements; and landscape. Moscow’s dramatic climate poses its own set of challenges too, which architects Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa have addressed with advanced envelope and heat recovery systems, and high-performance glazing. 

Garage Museum extension set to transform the Hexagon

The Garage Museum was established in 2008 by Dasha Zhukova and Roman Abramovich as the first philanthropic organisation in Russia devoted to contemporary art and culture. In 2015, the museum relocated to its permanent home in the former Vremena Goda restaurant, a Soviet-era modernist ruin resurrected by Rem Koolhaas’ firm OMA. Garage has collaborated with a number of architectural studios, including Shigeru Ban, Form Bureau, Snkh, Syndicate, and Grace.

‘The Hexagon will be revived by SANAA’s thoughtful and sensitive design, allowing Garage to ground itself in Russian history while expanding into the current global conversation,’ Zhukova says in a statement. ‘We want to ensure that our building reflects our ongoing inquiry into the function, purpose, and responsibility of the modern-day museum.’ 

INFORMATION

sanaa.co.jp

garagemca.org

Juan Herreros’ enthusiasm when talking about his new project, Oslo’s Munchmuseet, is palpable. ‘It opened up a conversation about what a museum is,’ he says. ‘They used to be fundamentally places for exhibitions. There was some talk about them being social hubs, places of encounter, but it didn't always translate into the architecture. Now, it is about how to bring all those different conversations and functions together in one building.' The result, the Norwegian capital's latest cultural draw and the new home to the collection of work by Norwegian artist Edvard Munch, the Munch Museum is opening to the public, designed by the Spanish architect's Madrid-based practice, Estudio Herreros.  

The launch was delayed due to the pandemic but the project finally opens its doors this week – and it is one of the most highly anticipated museums this side of Christmas in Europe. Yet, Herreros hastens to point out, with ‘about 40 per cent of its surface being dedicated to exhibitions, the displays are not the museum's main role'. While this is certainly a place for tourists and art enthusiasts and specialists, it is far more than that. Inviting in local communities and visitors from afar, schools and scholars, specialists and non-specialists, young and old, the Munch Museum draws on the city around it in more ways than one. ‘It's a vertical museum,' says the architect. ‘And as people go up they discover new layers of the city.' 

Munchmuseet: ‘a new model for a museum’

Its distinctive form is part of this approach. Neither a subtle, low-lying volume, nor a big flashy architectural gesture, the Munch Museum sits somewhere in-between, clearly contemporary yet working with its surroundings, both manmade and natural. ‘It's responsive to the changes of the weather in a reactive way,' says Herreros, explaining how the perforated, translucent aluminium façade reflects the climatic conditions around it – from stormy seas to colourful sunsets and grey, cloudy skies. With the right light, it merges into the background – or emerges, prominent and bold. 

Its location, in a new, central and lively, mixed-use neighbourhood of Oslo, means that it has a human scale and is surrounded by life and the city – as opposed to dominating within a wider site, as many grand museums often do. ‘It has two roles,' Herreros explains. ‘There is the significance from the water, its pretty postcard aspect, and the urban, human scale from the city's side. That’s why it bows a bit at the top. It is looking at the edge of the coastline and where the city meets the water. The building doesn’t renounce its public presence – it celebrates it. But it is also something you can feel is very close.' 

Inside, the space is designed to be extremely flexible. All the rooms are independent, so circulation remains separate, which means that if one room is closed off entirely, the building can still operate without any impact to its flow. It can be divided into sections with various parts acting independently. ‘We were inventing a new model for a museum with this verticality,' says Herreros, ‘and this model of flexibility has been very successful with the pandemic, for example.'

With over 26,700 works in its collection and 11 galleries, there is, of course, plenty of scope for displaying the great artist's work – which includes large-scale murals (such as, The Sun, completed in 1909, which stretches nearly 8m) and several versions of the iconic painting, The Scream. In its 13 storeys, the museum features halls for temporary and permanent exhibitions, community, education and flexible spaces, as well as an outdoor terrace that allows visitors to take in the landscape and the cityscape beyond, and a restaurant located on the 13th floor. 

Sustainability was an important part of the design and planning too. The Munchmuseet was created as part of the city’s FutureBuilt programme (an ‘Oslo-wide initiative to halve greenhouse gas emissions across the city’, explain its creators) and recycled materials and energy-saving techniques were used where possible to help lower the scheme’s overall carbon footprint.

As to how, and whether, its subject, Edvard Munch, influenced the museum design? Not as such, is the answer by Herreros, although there are definitely parallels to be drawn between the two. ‘The building is kind of moving, changing, you cannot clearly count its floors and the colour changes [with the] weather,' he says. ‘And for me, with Munch, the climate and atmospheric conditions were a big part of his art. Then, there are parallels around the responsibility of architects. Munch had roots in classical art, in the past, but he was also fighting conservatism, and I felt quite connected in that way, about fighting for progress through your work. And it is beautiful that at the end of his life he gave his work to the city, and he’s part of it.'

INFORMATION
estudioherreros.com

Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron make their South Korean debut with a monolithic new office building and cultural space in Seoul that boasts a majestic triangular silhouette. The 11-storey structure sits at the crest of a broad avenue in Seoul’s bustling Gangnam district, surrounded by an array of high-end fashion boutiques and flagships, including Louis Vuitton (designed by Frank Gehry), Dolce & Gabbana (Jean Nouvel) and Dior (Christian de Portzamparc). Housing the corporate HQ of ST International, a Korean energy and mining conglomerate, and its constituent SongEun Art & Cultural Foundation, which operates a nonprofit art space, this striking edifice is set to become a contemporary architectural landmark amid the Korean capital’s architecture and dense urban fabric.

Rising from the street like a sheer cliff face nearly 60m in height, the south-facing front façade presents a continuous plane of concrete interrupted by two long, slender windows that puncture the otherwise uniform surface. These precise incisions, the larger of which is more than 13m tall, accentuate the verticality of the structure while hinting at the spaces contained within. Both corners at the bottom of the façade are cut away to create lateral recesses that serve as points of entry for pedestrians and vehicles. As visitors pass beneath the suspended mass of the building’s cantilevered upper floors towards the main entrance, they emerge into an airy courtyard ringed by a walled garden that separates this backyard-like space from the neighbouring plots. It is here that the glass-covered rear façade begins its angular ascent, receding from view as it climbs towards the sharply pointed apex.

Façade comprises a unique patchwork

In contrast to the highly optimised architectural elements, certain aspects of the structure retain an unmistakable craft sensibility. Nowhere is this more apparent than the textured patchwork of intricate patterns that lends the building’s concrete surfaces a tactile quality: instead of using mass-produced modular panels to create the formwork necessary for casting concrete, builders installed several thousand square plywood boards, each of which yielded a unique imprint of its natural wood grain on the concrete as it hardened. An ode to the meaning behind the name SongEun, which translates as ‘hidden pine tree’, this endlessly rippling organic matrix induces a sense of wonder and a visceral urge to reach out and touch it, imbuing this inherently inert substance with an evocative resonance.

Despite its iconic profile and formidable presence, Herzog & de Meuron’s design does not manifest any singular aesthetic or thematic inspiration. Rather, its form is prescribed by its function, as the architects explain: ‘The triangular shape results from the building envelope specified for the site, maximising the floor area and exploiting the sculptural potential of the zoning laws.’

The building’s slanted rear façade dictates the internal programming of interior space; since the horizontal area of each floor decreases as its elevation increases, the upper eight floors encompass 2,032 sq m of offices while the exhibition spaces that occupy the lower floors (two above ground and one underground) comprise 3,513 sq m.

Practical design concerns also inform architectural decisions within the structure. The focal point of the ground-floor lobby is a spiralling vertical layer of concrete that carves a nautilus-shaped void out of the lobby floor, opening onto a cavernous subterranean exhibition space two floors below. Tracing the outer perimeter of this hollow concrete corkscrew is a circular staircase that leads upwards to a second floor exhibition space. More than just an aesthetic flourish, this prominent design element also discloses an inevitable spatial constraint generated by the internal curvature of the parking ramp, circumscribing the gaping cavity excavated from the centre of the lobby.

SongEun building and its debut exhibition

To inaugurate the completed building, a collaborative exhibition curated by Herzog & de Meuron and the SongEun Art & Cultural Foundation invites the public to explore its spaces and consider the relationship between art and architecture. The exhibition foregrounds the building itself, which audiences experience through drawings and displays related to the project’s development, including augmented reality resources that offer viewers unique perspectives on the project’s design and construction.

Elsewhere, samples of Herzog & de Meuron’s representative works are presented in the form of photographs by Thomas Ruff and architectural models from the Swiss firm’s archives. A selection of video collaborations featuring Swiss artists Rémy Zaugg and René Pulfer serve to introduce more conceptual interpretations of urbanism, landscape and memory as they relate to the built environment.

Interspersed throughout the exhibition are newly commissioned artworks by a selection of Korean contemporary artists who respond to the architecture and its site. Some of the most evocative works on view comprise a photographic series by Jihyun Jung, who accessed the building site during all phases of construction and documented its progress. An immersive architectural installation by Hoyeon Kang engages with the site's history, reproducing a typical Korean office lounge interior that might have been found in the previous building on this location. Tying aspects of architecture and fine art is a new abstract sculpture by Eunu Lee that takes inspiration from the design philosophy that has informed the enduring architectural legacy of Herzog & de Meuron.

INFORMATION

herzogdemeuron.com

If you've come across the city of Duisburg (population about half a million, nestled among the hills and valleys of Rhineland), chances are it would have been for its industrial architecture heritage, or status as the world's biggest inland port – or for its famed arts hub, the MKM Museum Küppersmühle, the centre for modern and contemporary art in Duisburg’s Inner Harbour and one of the most extensive private collections of German post-war art. And now, Swiss duo Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron, the museum's original architects, are back in town, celebrating the launch of their latest addition to Duisburg’s culture scene, Herzog & de Meuron’s new extension of the Küppersmühle.

A look back in MKM Museum Küppersmühle’s history

If you look at the majestic, brick structure housing the museum and get visions of the Tate Modern in London, there’s good reason. Duisburg’s Küppersmühle is also the result of the Swiss architecture studio’s skillful redesign of an existing industrial building – done around the same time too (the Tate launched in 2000 and the Duisburg project in 1999). The original structure on site was a grain mill, built in 1860 by leading local industrialist Wilhelm Vedder. This was replaced in 1908 by the complex of three buildings that makes up the museum today. Over the years a boiler house, a series of adjacent steel silos, and other buildings were added, until the facility closed down in the 1970s.

Herzog & de Meuron was first involved with the site in 1997, transforming the original complex into an art hub, aiming to give the campus a new lease of life as part of the city’s regeneration plans for this part of town (the masterplan was the work of Foster + Partners). The studio was called back again in 2013, appointed to create an extension to the impressive complex of historical buildings, kickstarting a new era for MKM Museum Küppersmühle.

The MKM Museum Küppersmühle extension

Respectful to the existing, orthogonal brick volumes on site and the wider setting, the architects created an addition that becomes a seamless part of the historical whole. ‘The new structure thus completes the existing museum complex in a visually appropriate way and forms a suitable conclusion to the row of buildings along the dock,’ they say. ‘At first glance it might seem as though the new building had always been there.’

Divided into three parts, the new addition contains exhibition halls, as well as utilities and art-handling facilities across five floors (one is underground) and a massing arrangement led by local planning guidelines that stipulate no building within 40m of the autobahn. Bridges through the existing silos connect the old and new parts – although these industrial features will serve more than one purpose as American artist James Turrell has created two permanent site-specific installations for them, which are planned to be revealed in 2022. Materials were chosen to complement and draw on the historical fabric. 

A striking, curved staircase connects all floors in the new section, and supports circulation flow throughout. At the same time, through its terracotta tone and textured concrete materiality, it echoes, together with the wider project, the overall character of the Küppersmühle ‘as a typical industrial facility of the 19th and 20th centuries’ – an approach that helps to establish this museum not only as a functional, modern home for the arts, but also as a considered piece of contemporary architecture.

INFORMATION
herzogdemeuron.com

Ordrupgaard Art Museum in Denmark, home to world-class Danish and French art, has expanded its wings with the opening of a new addition by Snøhetta. The international design studio has added five new subterranean exhibition spaces to the historic building following the museum's previous expansion by the late master designer Zaha Hadid in 2005. Discreetly situated near Jægersborg Dyrehave, Copenhagen, the state-owned art museum which was originally an impressive three-winged neo-classical country mansion continues to combine historic Danish architecture with contemporary design.

Mostly underground, the extension creates a holistic route through the museum that meticulously connects Hadid’s distinctive black lava concrete extension with the museum’s permanent collection and original building. Three of the new five spaces are dedicated to the museum's extensive assembly of French impressionist paintings while the remaining two zones masterfully link the existing exhibition spaces. The new expansion produces a well-informed circular movement throughout the building which creates a genuine sense of fluidity as one meanders around looking at the world-renowned art pieces.

The largest exhibition area is a bold, steel-skinned structure that playfully glistens in the tree-lined landscape. Inspired by the paintings of impressionist giants Degas, Monet, and Renoir, the extension exterior delicately captures light and its changing qualities. Characterized by its diagonal cut in the landscape, faceted edges, and polished finish, the form carefully guides visitors to the main entrance of the Ordrupgaard. This volume is complemented by the natural stone steps and lush surrounding foliage.

To contrast the metal exterior, Snøhetta created soft and organic interiors that help to provide a warm atmosphere. Inside, gypsum boards are mounted to oak walls which allow curators to easily change the colour scheme of each room. The ceilings on the other hand, are wrapped in crisp oak veneer cassettes with cleverly placed light fittings that help place the artwork on the centre stage. As you walk through the museum, you notice how natural daylight floods the building - both when you leave the exhibition spaces and when entering the original museum building. Here, light helps signify the transition from one building to the next.

For over three decades, Snøhetta has designed some of the most impressive cultural buildings across the globe. The transdisciplinary practice merges architecture, landscape, and interior design with graphic, product, and digital design. For their extension of the Ordrupgaard Art Museum, they have carefully considered the original structures, blended old and new, and created a fluid, elegant and refined addition to the historic Danish building.

INFORMATION
snohetta.com

On average, most international museums only show six to seven per cent of their collections to the public at any one time. The rest is often off-site and hidden from view, tucked away in closed depots. The new Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam, designed by architecture firm MVRDV, is bucking this trend, making 99 per cent of its building accessible to the public and the entire collection of the neighbouring Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen – some 151,000 artefacts – available for viewing, even as they are stored.

Technological innovation was key to this bold move, says MVRDV founding partner Winy Maas. ‘We put technology on the same level as sociology, ecology and economics,’ he says. ‘Innovations and achievements in all these aspects are equally important.’ Indeed, the Depot’s ovoid, monolithic appearance belies the most sophisticated engineering. The 39.5m-high, bowl-shaped structure is 40m in diameter at the bottom and 60m at the top, and its overhanging part has no direct supports. Additionally, the openings, including the visitors’ entrance, and the entrance and exit for the exhibitions, create weak points on the ground floor. The task, therefore, was to come up with a design in which the lowest (and narrowest) part of the building could withstand the high load from above. 

The solution lay in the foundations: the first two floors were made from concrete poured in situ, functioning as a structurally solid plinth upon which the building’s remaining four storeys could be constructed. These upper floors are made from prefabricated concrete elements. Below ground, the architects were keen to keep the foundation work strong but also as discreet as possible, to avoid obstructing the natural flow of underground water. ‘The foundation piles of the Depot are kept limited and narrow. We trialled this with our design for the Oslo headquarters of the Norwegian bank DNB, where we guaranteed that water could flow through subterraneously using the same principle,’ says Maas. ‘It is important for the environment that no blockage is created by underground parking garages, metro lines and so on.’ 

Covered by 1,664 mirrored glass panels, the 6,609 sq m façade appears to multiply the green scenery of the surrounding Museumpark. A number of different types of glass were used, including standard reflective glass; reflective glass with a film coating, which is used opposite the Erasmus medical centre to safeguard the patients’ privacy; transparent glass for work spaces that need more daylight; and a type of gradient glass that goes from mirror to fully transparent for the entrances and the roof, so that visitors can enjoy the long views from inside, too. The curvature of the glass panels was another challenge. ‘Most of the panels had to go in the oven two or three times to gain the perfect shape. It was a labour-intensive process,’ says Maas. 

The experimentation did not end there. On the roof are 75 birch trees, each several metres high, in an architectural garden. ‘We started growing them in the south of the Netherlands. By keeping the water level just beneath the surface, we trained them to grow their roots horizontally. When we moved them from the nursery, we knotted the roots together, then spread them out on the rooftop, as the overlapping of the roots creates a strong structure,’ says Maas. ‘Growing them was a simple but lengthy process; it took five years.’ The bowl shape means that the building has a limited footprint on the ground floor, while the roof is roomier, also offering wider views over the Museumpark and the city beyond.

To ensure energy efficiency, MVRDV installed underground thermal storage for climate control, solar panels, LED lighting and high-performance insulation. Rainwater is stored for use in irrigation and the toilet facilities, while the remaining water run-off is directed into a neighbouring pond (belonging to Het Nieuw Instituut), which will be converted into a water basin for the surroundings. 

Maas also invited other creatives to contribute to the project. The ground floor comprises two half-moon shaped spaces; one of them contains the entrance hall and the other a loading dock. They are separated by glass. Artist John Körmeling took advantage of the high ceiling here to create a mezzanine, so visitors can watch art handlers at work on the other side of the transparent wall. Amsterdam-based design firm Concrete created a mobile table system for the rooftop restaurant, which means it can be transformed into a gallery or performance space at any time. Artist and photographer Marieke van Diemen designed the atrium’s 13 floating glass display cases: when an artwork is removed from storage, it will immediately be put into a case for protection, but will still be on view. ‘We developed a system where you can see the exhibits at all angles; you can even walk on top of them, or see them below from the glass bridges,’ says Maas.   

There will be storage depots on floors one to five, the education centre will be on the second, galleries on the third and fourth, and the Stichting De Verre Bergen suite (named after Rotterdam’s social investment fund, which covered the building cost of the Depot alongside the City Council) on the fifth. The atrium occupies the central space on all floors and its crisscrossing staircases lead visitors through various public areas, all the way up to the rooftop. Each atrium staircase will have a landing exactly in the centre of the building, allowing visitors a panoramic view from the heart of the Depot. 

An architectural marvel and a landmark for the city of Rotterdam, the Depot marks a new wave of urban development in Europe's largest seaport. The next few years will see the unveiling of MVRDV’s Harbour Experience Centre, the Feyenoord Stadium by OMA, and the Fenix Museum of Migration by MAD Architects, to name a few. As one of the draughtsmen of the city’s bold architecture statements, Maas calls it ‘a kind of laboratory’. ‘Innovations are allowed in Rotterdam,’ he says. ‘The process has actually been going on for 50 years and we have made a very beautiful collection of urban interventions; here you see the experiments of our time.’

INFORMATION

 mvrdv.nl; boijmans.nl 

Situated on Manchester City’s Cheetham Hill Road, the former synagogue that is now part of the Manchester Jewish Museum was once the focal point of a thriving community and local textile trading industry. Over time, the neighbourhood changed, and eight years ago, the Grade II-listed structure found itself in an ambiguous context of industrial warehouses and ramshackle merchants' buildings. It is in this setting that Citizens Design Bureau began searching for a way to ‘express the messiness and blurred boundaries of the surrounding context’, says practice director Katy Marks. The studio was appointed in 2016, and now, after almost a decade of planning and two years of closure, the new Manchester Jewish Museum is complete and opens its doors to the public.

A collaborative design process with the local community uncovered food as a point of intersection among multiple faiths. This led to a brief reimagining the museum as a public ‘living-room’ with the ability to host community meals and functions, as well as a range of live events.

For this to be successfully realised, it was important that the new extension did not reference any religious iconography that might subsequently reject or exclude certain communities. Externally, this intent is expressed through a perforated, Corten façade that pulls back to create a new entrance, inviting a diversity of visitors and countering the former synagogue building’s overtly religious appearance.

Internally, a well-lit atrium takes visitors through a programme of café, shop and community learning space; the last equipped to host free baking lessons with locals. Upstairs in the new gallery, a large table housing objects from the museum’s collection doubles as a surface for dining, symbolising the union of faith, culture and tradition: the invisible things that hold communities together.

The interior of the deconsecrated synagogue extends this theme of continuity and sharing through a careful restoration that remains faithful to its history as the oldest surviving synagogue in Manchester, while balancing this with the requirement for a fully functioning performance space. ‘It’s very much about not pleasing everyone but telling stories so that it speaks for itself and invites everyone,’ explains Marks. ‘This is a social history museum not a faith museum, and the synagogue is an artefact within that,’ she continues. New is integrated into old seamlessly; sound infrastructures are concealed within the balustrade which, along with the rest of the interior, has been reinstated to the original 19th-century colour palette.

Much like the synagogue’s outward expression, which reflects the geographical origins of Sephardi Jews in North Africa through its Moorish geometric motifs, the new extension reflects an emerging context of openness and exchange by facilitating intercultural dialogue, bridging religious and cultural differences to build on a shared, common experience.

INFORMATION

citizensdesignbureau.net

manchesterjewishmuseum.com

It’s more than 35 years since Charles Jencks – the critic credited with the briefly shocking idea that modern architecture was dead, and then with popularising postmodernism – first opened the door of his newly completed home and ushered me into the lobby. Except that it wasn’t a lobby. It was a ‘Cosmic Oval’, a space which would, he said, introduce me to all the themes he had explored in the design of his house in London’s Holland Park. For the next two hours he proceeded to explain them to me in head-spinning detail. He had three closely typed A4 sheets full of notes in his hand to prompt him. He checked them from time to time, just in case there were details he had forgotten to mention. But he didn’t really need to, his enthusiasm and energy kept him going without missing a beat.

It was a disorientating experience, which began with the whirlpool of mirrored doors lining the Cosmic Oval all around us. I never counted exactly how many there were, but the precise number would have been important to Charles. It was an opaque reference perhaps to the 13.7 billion years since the Big Bang, which the Cosmic Oval represents, or to the number of years that elapsed from the Big Bang to the appearance of the first atoms. Or maybe the ‘quadrupole anomaly’ that describes the geometry of the Oval. Or maybe all three. 

Before I had a minute to try to take all this in, Jencks, lanky and angularly elegant, with a fondness for pocket handkerchiefs, fedoras, and velvet suits, was pointing up at the frieze above our heads, painted by the artist William Stok to his instructions. There were Imhotep, architect to the Pharaoh Djoser; Abbot Suger, the great patron of early Gothic architecture; Pythagoras; Erasmus; the emperor Hadrian; Thomas Jefferson; and Hannah Arendt, in no particular order.

While I was still trying to come to terms with this cosmic dinner party, Jencks had taken my arm and was pointing out that each of the doors that circled us had two symmetrically positioned handles, implying that the house was essentially a duality. The house was about cosmic time, but it was also about earthly time. And we were just getting started. Here was the staircase that spirals up through the house, with its 52 steps, each of them divided into seven segments to measure out the years. At the bottom was Eduardo Paolozzi’s mosaic representation of a black hole. On the ground floor was a celebration of the seasons: Michael Graves’ ‘Spring Room’, beyond which was the ‘Indian Summer’ kitchen, and to the right was an Allen Jones painting, inspired by Poussin’s A Dance to the Music of Time. Charles always loved a pun. Looking into the garden was Piers Gough’s jacuzzi, the tub modelled on an upturned version of a dome by Borromini. When we finally got into the garden at the end of the tour I could see the back of the house, a symbolic representation of its four occupants: Charles, his wife Maggie Keswick Jencks, and their two children.

Charles called me afterwards. People were asking him how much of the house was Terry Farrell, his co-architect on the project, and how much was Charles Jencks. And what was the role of all the other people who had worked on the house? He wanted me to act, as he put it, ‘as a neutral observer from the high-tech tendency with no skin in the postmodern game, to adjudicate on giving credit where credit was due’. Thankfully it was never necessary. 

Farrell later described the house as setting in train the chain of events that led to the break-up of his architectural partnership with Nick Grimshaw, who remained a high-tech enthusiast. But the house was certainly the combined work of many designers, artists, architects and craftsmen.

In May 2021, on my most recent visit, Charles’ daughter Lily let me into the house through a different door, where the garage had once been. We walked into a gallery that acts as a temporary exhibition space for the house in its new role as a museum. It’s an alteration planned by Charles and Lily, and approved by the local planners, before the house was listed by Historic England as a monument of outstanding architectural and historic importance in 2018. Wrestling with Grade I designation would have greatly complicated the process of adapting the house for public access. As it is, the new gallery, with a floor painted to look like malachite, does more than defer to the original building. It adds a new layer to the house, one that represents Charles’ growing fascination with cosmology. Hanging in the new space is a globe, representing the damage of climate change, that Charles was painting almost to his last moment.

Restoring the house and decorative detail has given it a new lustre. Pierre Beaudry, who did much of the original paintwork, was assisted by Phyllis Clair Smith, working with Artist Decorators Ltd and Simon Smith and Michael Brooke Architects.

There is something more than a little melancholy about the idea of a house – created by a friend who died at the end of 2019, a place which I remember as full of conversation and people, in which birthdays were celebrated, friendships formed, and a few arguments started – becoming a museum. There are depressing precedents. Gerrit Rietveld’s house in Utrecht, where every trace of the lives of the remarkable people who lived in the house has been wiped clean, and visitors are led through in obedient groups wearing paper overshoes, is one. Ludwig Wittgenstein’s house for his sister in Vienna, now occupied by the Bulgarian government, is another.

But Lily Jencks, who worked closely with her father on the transformation of the house into a base for his archive, and a place in which to explore the many subjects that fascinated him and her mother, has no intention of allowing the house to become a lifeless shrine. 

Maggie and Charles, and later, his third wife Louisa Lane Fox, filled the place with people and got them to talk and think. It’s here that one particular dinner took place, at which a conversation between Norman Foster and Michael Graves got noisier and noiser. Graves finally snapped, ‘Norman, I would rather practice law than make buildings that are like yours.’ 

Lily wants to make the Cosmic House an intimate setting for a strictly limited number of visitors, even if she remembers it from her own childhood as a place where she was reluctant to bring her school friends. 

Charles and Maggie did so many things with their lives that it is hard to define them by any one pursuit. Both studied architecture: Jencks at Harvard, the glamorous and brainy Maggie at the Architectural Association (after reading English at Oxford, and starting a fashion brand. Patrick Lichfield photographed her modelling her own designs for Vogue). Maggie’s experiences with cancer made them both think long and hard about how institutional medicine feels for the individual, their families and friends. Before her death in 1995, they conceived the strategy for the Maggie’s Centres, creating a network of independent and intimate refuges attached to hospitals that could provide consolation and counselling as a relief from the impersonal nature of production line medicine. There are 27 centres in Britain now, and one each in Hong Kong, Tokyo and Barcelona. Each of them is designed by a different architect, ranging from Maggie and Charles’ personal friends, including Zaha Hadid, Norman Foster, Richard Rogers and Frank Gehry, to younger designers such as Carmody Groarke.

Working with Lily, Charles developed an impressive career later in life as a landscape architect, not least with the 30-acre Garden of Cosmic Speculation at the Keswick family home outside Dumfries, as well as at the Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh, and in locations from Beijing to Milan.

Charles originally called his London home ‘The Thematic House’. He saw it as a chance to explore the ideas that underpinned his own view of postmodernism, at a time when it was already in danger of being swamped by a set of superficial clichés. His later enthusiasm for cosmology took him in the different directions that are reflected in the most recent additions to what is now the Cosmic House. It has always been a house with something to say. And that is what it intends to go on being.

INFORMATION

The Cosmic House, 19 Lansdowne Walk, London W11, opens to the public on 24 September 2021. Visits can be booked through thecosmichouse.com from 1 September

Witherford Watson Mann (WWM) has competed its modernisation of London's Courtauld Gallery. The much loved art destination in Somerset House has been undergoing extensive reimagining by the Stirling Prize-winning architects for some five years, but has just announced a November return to the capital's cultural scene. 

Working through the gallery with surgical precision, the architects have refreshed the building, completely reintepreting the visitor's journey, and restoring and enhancing spaces within. The institution is made up of ‘disconnected houses/vertical buildings originally constructed to provide homes to a varied set of government offices and learned societies', say the architects. Using historical references and a keen eye for sensitively mixing old and new, WWM has worked hard to balance the needs of a heritage building with those of a prime, 21st century cultural landmark. 

This includes the restored Blavatnik Fine Rooms and the (newly named) LVMH Great Room – London’s oldest exhibition space, which was previously subdivided into smaller sections and will now be used to display Impressionist work. Alongside them, a brand new gallery has been created on the first floor for The Courtauld’s collection of paintings and decorative arts from the Medieval and Early Renaissance periods. 

Apart from the gallery, the transformation has also addressed The Courtauld’s facilities for teaching, research and students. This part of the project is much about functionality and the experiencing of art by everyone, as accessibility will be dramatically improved, and encompasses a redesigned reception area, carefully thought-out lighting, non-reflective showcase glass ramps, and a lift. 

‘This ambitious transformation project reimagines Sir William Chambers’ masterpiece to make it a public building fit for the 21st century,’ says practice co-director Stephen Witherford. ‘Through a careful balance of studious conservation and bold intervention we wanted to reveal the layers of the building’s evolution. Opening up spaces and transforming the layout of the building will provide a more versatile infrastructure for exhibition and exchange in a way that resonates with the distinctive characteristics of Chambers’ original design.'

The Courtauld’s collection, which includes masterpieces ranging from the Middle Ages to the 20th century, will relaunch with a variety of shows, the display of Oskar Kokoschka’s epic modern painting, The Myth of Prometheus (which is the largest work in the collection), and a new, contemporary commission by artist Cecily Brown.

INFORMATION

wwmarchitects.co.uk

courtauld.ac.uk

Its glistening façade reflecting gently on the Oslo seafront waters in Norway, the much-awaited Munch Museum, designed by Spanish architecture firm Estudio Herreros, has just been completed and is gearing up towards its public opening on 22 October 2021. Created to host the extensive body of work of Norwegian artist Edvard Munch, the building, set in the city’s growing Bjørvika district, cuts a distinctly contemporary figure, while adding a key cultural destination to the global art and architecture map.

Upon opening, the project will be the one of the world’s largest museums dedicated to a single artist. With over 26,700 works in its collection and 11 galleries to play with, the institution will, for the first time in its history, have ample space to display Munch’s work – including his large-scale murals (such as, The Sun, completed in 1909, which stretches nearly 8m). The exhibits will also include several versions of Munch’s iconic painting, The Scream.

Located a stone’s throw from another Oslo waterfront landmark, the Snøhetta-designed opera house, the museum stands 13 storeys tall. Clad in perforated, translucent aluminium that was selected specifically for its ability to reflect the colours and weather changes of the Oslo skies, its sharp-looking, geometric shape is mirrored elegantly on the fjord’s surface. Meanwhile, higher up, an outdoor terrace allows visitors to take in the landscape and the cityscape beyond. A restaurant is located on the 13th floor. 

The building boasts strong sustainability ceredentials, created as part of the city’s FutureBuilt programme (an ‘Oslo-wide initiative to halve greenhouse gas emissions across the city’, explain its creators). Recycled materials were used where possible, and energy-saving techniques throughout help lower the scheme’s overall carbon footprint.

Come October, the programme of events at the museum will launch with concerts, literature readings, performance and art workshops; all this on top of the permanent and temporary exhibitions within. The aim is to embed the museum in its community and the wider new cultural district of Bjørvika around it. The first show there, ‘Tracey Emin/Edvard Munch: The Loneliness of the Soul’, is set to explore Munch’s influence on Emin. 

INFORMATION

estudioherreros.com

The Carnavalet Museum has reopened its doors in the French capital after an extensive, four-year renovation, and it is a majestic celebration of the city of Paris – one achieved through a gentle touch that priotises respect and openness. The works, led by Chatillon Architectes, in association with Snøhetta and Nathalie Crinière’s Agence NC, focus on ‘magnifying the building’, explains the team. ‘[We had to] to reinvent everything, without changing anything.'

The museum is a long-term staple of Paris’ cultural scene, focusing on the city and its history, arts and transformations through the ages. First opening in 1880 and set mostly within two mansions, called Carnavalet and Le Peletier Saint-Fargeau, the institution had been affected by confusing layout additions and changes over the years, which meant that a redesign and refocus of its tour and narrative were becoming a pressing matter. 

The architectural team was appointed to work with the existing historical architecture, the displays, and some clever new interventions, in order to refresh the experience and create a home for the museum's extensive collections of furniture, objects and artwork that would be fit for the 21st century. Opening up the interior, and improving accessibility and legibility of the trajectory and displays were crucial. 

‘The Carnavalet Museum is not a monument, it is a small city, or rather an ecosystem with its stratifications, its fauna of sculpture, and its flora of painting... We tiptoe around it, without uprooting anything, without moving anything, with the delicacy of a botanist,' says architect and founder of Chatillon Architectes, François Chatillon, of the team’s challenge to respectfully rethink the museum.

Key design gestures include ‘rediscovering' the complex's original entrance at 23 rue de Sévigné; creating a flowing, fluid circulation plan; maintaining a visual connection with the outdoors, which was a particular challenge given the internal differences in levels and ceiling heights; and making way for whole new galleries on the first floor.

The three studios worked together on the exhibition design, aiming to create a blend of old and new that feels organic and respectful. ‘This intervention illustrates a contemporary approach that we stand for; as opposed to an architecture of rupture, it is one of historical continuity, and continuity of life,' concludes Chatillon.

INFORMATION
chatillonarchitectes.com

snohetta.com

Opening on 12 June after extensive refurbishment by architects Wright & Wright, the Museum of the Home in Hoxton, east London, is ready to show off its makeover. The institution, which is located in a low-lying brick architecture complex of 300-year-old almshouses and lush architectural gardens, has been redesigned to bring contemporary elements to the historical buildings, proposing an exciting and informative experience for visitors of all ages. 

But Wright & Wright's reimagining is not just about restoring what's already there. The new design creates 80 per cent more exhibition space and 50 per cent more public areas. A brand new entrance, opposite Hoxton rail station, and two garden pavilions are part of its much needed transformation. There is extended gallery space across three levels and a new Collections Library and Study Room.

‘In our scheme the consolidation of the historic building fabric and addition of distinguishably contemporary new elements has proved crucial to unlocking the project,' explain the architects. ‘Originally, the almshouses were designed as a collection of cellular residences, but over the years, walls and floors were removed or punched through to accommodate visitor circulation. Though this enabled the building to operate as a museum, it also had the effect of compromising its structural integrity.’ They add: ‘[Now, with] its careful reuse of resources and use of energy going forward, it is a genuinely sustainable solution.’

Wright & Wright’s architectural intervention ‘reflects a reframed curatorial approach’, say the institution's representatives. Their goal is for the Museum of the Home to appeal to a wider audience and offer more diversity in the domestic issues they address through their overall programme. Creating more immersive, accessible shows is at the core of the museum's new strategy. ‘As history persuasively shows, the idea of home is ever‐changing, and so are we,' conclude the architects. 

The Museum of the Home is dedicated to exploring the meaning of home and the domestic through permanent collections, exhibitions, performances, discussions, and events.

INFORMATION
wrightandwright.co.uk

Telling the story of the Olympic Games, past and present, a new Olympic Museum is about to open its doors in the beloved sporting event's birth country, Greece. Set in the heart of Athens and designed by local architecture practice KLab and Mulo Creative Lab, this important cultural space combines sports and culture in a monumental, minimalist and information-rich display. 

Working with the shell of an existing building, the design team focused on transforming the museum's interior in an immersive, informative experience, full of drama and draws for the visitor. At 9m high and some 3500 sq m, there was substantial space to play with. Working with a clean, pared down backdrop featuring sweeping shapes and tall ceilings, the designers employed colour accents and clever graphics to create a composition that feels clean, welcoming and engaging. 

The displays are organised into two parts. One tells the story of the Olympic Games, from their very foundation in ancient Greece to today’s international sporting get-together every four years. The second addresses themes around the Games’ evergreen values, the Olympic movement (also celebrated in museums in other parts of the world, such as the recent DS+R work in Colorado) and the role of athletes and individual sports. 

The architects and designers developed the architecture and exhibition design in parallel, so the whole feels coherent. Objects and spatial elements are in sync, complementing each other, but without the interior detracting from the information-rich content. Powerful geometries draw the eye but their abstraction allows different readings so that the architecture doesn’t become distracting. Light was also a crucial element in the space – it appears everywhere, bright, like the sunlight in the Greek landscape, but its sources are hidden and subtle. The design team worked with lighting specialists Coolshadow on the concept. 

‘We had infinite sources of inspiration for the overall composition,’ says KLab’s director Konstantinos Labrinopoulos, ‘as we had many objects to work with, supported by other museums and cultural bodies. Our design, to an extent, highlights the sense of sporting competition, through the depictions of athletes in motion, which in turn is a narration of the idea of evolution of sports through time.’

INFORMATION
klabarchitects.com

A brand new Inuit art centre is opening at the Winnipeg Art Gallery (WAG). Named Qaumajuq, this new cultural hub in Manitoba, Canada, has been designed to celebrate the creative output, and in particular contemporary work by artists from the Indigenous community in the country. The facilities have been designed by Los Angeles based architect Michael Maltzan and bring together clean, minimalist forms with a sense of openness and state-of-the-art gallery interiors. 

The project combines art galleries with spaces for academic research, studio art, and educational programs. This wealth of facilities to honour, study and learn about Inuit art is an addition to the city's cultural map that has been awaited with excitement. The scheme involved the renovation and significant extension to the WAG's existing 1971 Gallery building by Gustavo da Roza. 

The new building's undulating, light-coloured, Bethel White Granite facade brings a refreshing twist to WAG's well known existing building. ‘Its abstract quality recalls the scale and carved forms of the North as well as the artwork housed within its walls,' explain the architects. Sinuous and light-feeling, while at the same time firmly anchored to the ground through its solid materials, the structure features polished concrete floors and clean, white interiors that allow the art to take centre stage.

The centre contains galleries, but also classrooms, art studios, an interactive theatre and research areas, as well as a shop and cafe. The interior is flowing and open, allowing views through areas and levels. A custom desiged glass art storage vault at its heart houses part of WAG's relevant art collection (which in total holds some 14,000 pieces), prominently showcased as a key architectural and display feature that draws the eye and interest of visitors. At the same time, seen from the street, the vault's striking presence also attracts the attention of passers-by.

Starting to open its doors to visitors this week – starting with inviting members of the Indigenous community to see it first, today – Qaumajuq will throw its doors open to the wider public from 27 March. 

‘Qaumajuq builds on the WAG’s long history of collecting and exhibiting Inuit art and working closely with Inuit partners and stakeholders, guided by our Indigenous Advisory Circle,' say the art centre's representatives. ‘We aim to provide a platform for Inuit voices and ensure Inuit and all communities feel welcome and at home.' 

INFORMATION

mmaltzan.com

The awaited M+ visual culture museum in Hong Kong designed by Swiss architecture firm Herzog & de Meuron will open in 2021, it has been announced. The structure – construction now complete – has drawn considerable attention since plans were first announced almost a decade ago.

Located in Hong Kong’s West Kowloon Cultural District, M+ is the first global museum of contemporary visual culture in Asia dedicated to collecting, exhibiting, and interpreting visual art, design, architecture, and moving image. There will also be a curatorial emphasis on Hong Kong visual culture from across the last two centuries. The museum has already produced a number of off-site and satellite exhibitions, and even an international symposium, but the completion of its ‘forever home' on the Victoria Harbour waterfront is an anticipated development, with the monumental structure long-lauded as one of the museum's most impressive attributes.

The museum – with a total footprint of 65,000 sq m, including 17,000 sq m of exhibition space across 33 galleries – is shaped like a ‘T', with horizontal and vertical volumes intersecting. The slender tower is topped by an expansive podium, offering unobstructed views of the waterfront.

The tower and a second-floor podium (housing much of the exhibition space, intended to create a seamless visitor experience) are formed from concrete structures clad in ceramic tiles that reflect changing light and weather conditions. This is a departure from the predominantly glass and steel façades favoured by nearby skyscrapers. The tower façade also features an LED display system, which will broadcast content from and related to the museum, adding a sense of interactivity to the already electric Hong Kong skyline.

Jacques Herzog, founding partner of Herzog & de Meuron, says M+ is ‘locally inspired, but at the same time universal and open; it is for the people and visitors across the world’. He articulates that diversity is intrinsic to the museum's DNA. ‘[The museum] best expresses where we should go as a world culture, where diversity, equality, and access to art of all kinds are expressed from the very beginning.'

Herzog & de Meuron – in collaboration with TFP Farrells and Arup – won the coveted design project against keen competition (think: Snøhetta, Renzo Piano Building Workshop and Toyo Ito & Associates) in 2013.

INFORMATION

mplus.org.hk

The Luma Foundation's anticipated creative campus in the historic French city of Arles is ready for its grand launch. The complex is throwing open its doors to the public tomorrow, 26 June 2021, featuring a striking central tower designed by Frank Gehry.

Located at the Parc des Ateliers, the 27-acre campus is the brainchild of Swiss art maverick Maja Hoffmann, who established the Luma Foundation in 2004. Since, she has masterminded a network of creative projects in the city, collaborating with a roll call of renowned creative figures – like artist Jorge Pardo on hotel and artist residence l’Arlatan, for instance, and Selldorf Architects on the conversion of four of the campus' former railway factories into arts spaces. Tom Eccles, Liam Gillick, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Philippe Parreno, and Beatrix Ruf are all named as advisors on the project, which has been ongoing since 2008. The work of more than 100 artists and innovators has already been presented across the city over the last decade, but this summer marks the campus' official opening.

The unquestioned architectural centrepiece of Luma Arles – Gehry's twisting, geometric tower – is finished with 11,000 stainless steel panels, and boasts the American architect's singular vision for creating otherworldly, gravity-defying structures. The 15,000 sq m space will be home to exhibition galleries, project spaces and the foundation's research and archive facilities, alongside workshop and seminar rooms. Gehry quotes Van Gogh’s Starry Night, the ‘soaring rock clusters you find in the region', and ‘the plan of the Roman amphitheatre' as inspirations for the building's design. Landscape architect Bas Smets has lent his eye to the surrounding gardens and public park.

Arles has long been a cultural hotspot. It's a haven for painters chasing the Provencal sunlight on fields of lavender, sunflowers and the Côte d’Azur, while the city's summer photography festival, Les Rencontres d’Arles, brings more than 100,000 visitors in a typical year. Hoffman's campus promises to attract a new and global audience, with Luma Arles set to be a collaborative space for ‘artists and innovators of the future'. ‘There is one driving metaphor for Luma at the Parc des Ateliers: that of a living organism,' says Hoffman. ‘As such the balance between form and function determines its viability. It is about composing a polyphonic score where everything is ordered, yet where everything is possible.'

The opening programme will include work by 45 artists and designers and special new commissions for Luma by international artists, such as Etel Adnan, Ólafur Elíasson, Koo Jeong A, Kapwani Kiwanga, Helen Marten, Pierre Huyghe, Carsten Höller, Philippe Parreno and Rirkrit Tiravanija. 

INFORMATION

luma-arles.org

ADDRESS

Luma Arles
Parc des Ateliers
33 avenue
Victor Hugo 13200
Arles

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Antwerp's majestic Royal Museum of Fine Arts – also known as KMSKA – is about to reopen its doors after a transformation and update by Dutch architecture practice KAAN Architecten. This includes a brand new wing with a series of minimalist rooms. Now, the building, a generous, historic late 19th century structure, has been thoroughly restored and extended, now offering more and better spaces to experience art. 

The venue, which was originally designed by Jacob Winders and Frans van Dyck, was conceived as a ‘daylight museum', explains the team at KAAN. This means, it was a building to be experienced as ‘a promenade surrounded by stunning artworks as well as the external landscape, witnessed through its multiple lookouts over the city and the inner patios.' 

Respecting the existing structure's intention, the architects hid all alterations and extension within the existing volumes. So, from the outside, one would never anticipate the heritage building was ever changed at all. Once stepping inside though, visitors encounter KAAN's masterful, minimalist signature style, which has been adapted to fit the 19th century building. 

The museum's masterplan, the architects say, is now divided into three main areas. There is a public entrance area, the central exhibition spaces and offices (which the team dubs ‘feel, see and work' spaces, respectively). Old merges effortlessly with the new, respectfully blending periods and styles in a functional and appropriate manner. This allows the institution's rich art collection to take centre stage. 

A brand new 21st century gallery space is located at the building's heart, replacing four patios. It consists of a series of bright, white halls composed of sharp plastered surfaces and bespoke marble furniture. The contrast between this wing's minimalist rooms and the existing galleries makes the addition clear and signifies the contemporary work to be displayed there. It also highlights and celebrates the museum's heritage value through juxtaposition

INFORMATION

kaanarchitecten.com

WINNER

Temple of Steps, Andhra Pradesh, India

Pictured top, Mumbai-based architect Sameep Padora was commissioned to create this temple for the residents of a number of villages around Nandyal in India’s Andhra Pradesh. The architect’s aim was to try to connect ‘the socio-cultural expectations of a temple with the ecological framework and dynamics of and around the site’. A nearby canal, previously used to irrigate the surrounding cotton and chilli fields, was dried up, so the architect went to work bringing water back into the landscape, flowing from the ground through neighbouring limestone quarries to form a pond. The temple’s volumes were imagined as a traditional ghat; a flight of steps leading down to a waterbody. This is a nod to the country’s particular historical typology, found for example in the city of Benares. India’s rich cultural heritage was a key source of inspiration for Padora in more ways than one; he also drew on a Tirupati 10th-century temple to plan his design that combines water and manmade structures. The building is made using black limestone slabs, profiled to form the steps and the roof. The structure incorporates soil and planting to help with cooling, to negotiate the region’s intense heat.

sp-arc.net

KEY FEATURES: water, historical references, stone architecture, planted architecture 
ARCHITECT’S PREVIOUS WORK: school library, Kopargaon, India; Lattice House, Jammu, India; Shiv Temple, Wadeshwar, Maharashtra, India 

SHORTLIST

MEETT, Toulouse, France

OMA’s MEETT Exhibition and Convention Centre in Toulouse links the city and the countryside; an industrial part of town and the agricultural landscape to the north; and through its function as an expo site, Toulouse and the rest of the world. Located to the city’s north, in its new ‘innovation zone’, the complex is planned around three main volumes, created in parallel to each other: a row of modular exhibition halls; a convention centre and multifunction event hall; and a reception area, including a silo car park for some 3,000 cars. The last is placed at the centre of the composition, leading visitors to the volumes flanking it and their respective functions. Seen as an ‘extrovert’ structure by its creators – a team led by OMA partners Chris van Duijn, Ellen van Loon and Rem Koolhaas – MEETT is ‘not an architectural intervention, but an urban machine. Both monumental in its scale and subtle in its overall impact, it will be a new gateway to Toulouse.’ French practices PPA Architectures and Taillandier Architectes Associés were associated designers. The structure has a fairly limited colour and material palette, alluding to a functional, pared down approach that is simple – yet carefully thought out – and easy to navigate. A series of black boxes, white-coloured steel and a polycarbonate skin make up the exhibition halls. Inside, vast, flexible, impressive spaces with a utilitarian feel are filled with natural light.

oma.eu

KEY FEATURES: urban campus, functionality, pared down aesthetic, polycarbonate skin 
ARCHITECTS’ PREVIOUS WORK: Fondazione Prada, Milan, Italy; Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow, Russia; CCTV Tower, Beijing, China

He Art Museum, Shunde, China

Southern China’s traditional distinctive round buildings reflect the ancient belief that the sky is round and divine, and the Earth is square. Pritzker Prize-winning Japanese architect Tadao Ando has reinterpreted this vernacular and the region’s famed waterside architecture for the new contemporary He Art Museum (HEM) in Shunde. The founder, He Jianfeng, who owns industrial investment group Infore, one of the region’s most successful businesses, hopes the museum’s striking architecture, Western works of art, and focus on southern China’s Lingnan culture will spark serious interest in culture and the arts. The entrance to the 16,000 sq m spiral-shaped pavilion, situated adjacent to Infore’s headquarters and plaza in the central business district, is by a path that crosses the pond encircling the museum. Inside, a monumental central skywell and floor-to-ceiling windows with aluminium alloy louvres flood the interior with daylight. An imposing pair of double-helix staircases in Ando’s signature smooth silvery-grey concrete create a dramatic Guggenheim-esque feel emphasised by the slightly cantilevered ascending four-storeys. There is a square ground-floor gallery, bookstore and café, and circular exhibition spaces above.

tadao-ando.com

KEY FEATURES: circular shape, concrete architecture, traditional vernacular references
ARCHITECT’S PREVIOUS WORK: Punta della Dogana, Venice, Italy; Church of the Light, Osaka, Japan; Naoshima Contemporary Art Museum, Naoshima, Japan

Town House, Kingston, UK

Community was a key factor in the design decisions of RIBA Gold Medal-winning Grafton Architects, which won the commission to create Town House, a structure to combine a library and dance studios for Kingston University under a single roof. Stepping inside, the architects’ intention becomes instantly apparent through the sheer openness of the building – both physical and symbolic. There are no barriers towards the street, so anybody can walk in and stroll around the library or get a coffee at the canteen. The interior is composed of large, interconnected halls and double- and triple-height spaces, adding a sculptural touch. Nothing seems hidden away, although clever niches were created for privacy. The street-facing colonnade and a continuation of the floor material from the outside in are designed to encourage people to step inside. For a building that is primarily made out of concrete – constructed by the multi-award-winning contractor Willmott Dixon using prefabricated elements – the whole feels extraordinarily light. This sense is increased by large openings throughout and the elegant but hardwearing, everyday materials, such as wood, which help create a sophisticated but comfortable atmosphere, entirely fit for purpose. At the building’s heart sits an auditorium. Partitions can be drawn back to allow natural light to pour in, through the glass expanses of the façade. The building has achieved a BREEAM Excellent rating for sustainability. Roof gardens allow the use of brown roof technology to absorb water and to enhance biodiversity.

graftonarchitects.ie

KEY FEATURES: prefabricated concrete elements, sense of light and space, high sustainability rating, roof gardens 
ARCHITECTS’ PREVIOUS WORK: Universita Luigi Bocconi School of Economics; Milan, Italy; Venice Architecture Biennale 2018; Universidad de Ingeniería y Tecnología (UTEC), Lima, Peru

US Olympic & Paralympic Museum, Colorado, USA

Conceived to pay tribute to the Olympic and Paralympic movements in America, the latest Diller Scofidio + Renfro design opened in summer 2020 in Southwest Downtown, Colorado Springs. The US Olympic & Paralympic Museum is a striking piece of architecture defined by a soaring roof, clad in aluminium scales, that sweeps and folds impressively against its Rocky Mountains backdrop and glistens in the extraordinary local sunlight. Even with its commanding presence and picturesque setting, the architects say they have placed ‘Team USA athletes at the centre of the experience’. The building features 20,000 sq ft of galleries, a state-of-the-art theatre, event space and café, all celebrating the athletes’ ‘energy and grace’ and the much-loved international event’s values. The architect and client team also proudly state that this cultural offering is ‘amongst the most accessible museums in the world’, as DS+R paid special attention to this in the design, ensuring all areas and events are equally accessible to people of all abilities – and they all share a common path through the building. While the impressive façade consists of over 9,000 unique folded anodised diamond-shaped aluminium panels, inside, a crisp, white colour palette creates a fitting context for rotating shows and various displays. A terraced, covered plaza sits at the heart of the complex, leading to exhibition halls and café area.

dsrny.com 

KEY FEATURES: a roof clad with aluminium scales, accessibility, reflective volumes, irregular shapes 
ARCHITECTS’ PREVIOUS WORK: Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, University of California, Berkeley, USA; The Broad, Los Angeles, USA; High Line, New York, USA

SEE MORE FROM WALLPAPER* DESIGN AWARDS 2021

In one of the year’s most anticipated cultural launches, Houston’s Museum of Fine Arts is about to celebrate the inauguration of the Nancy and Rich Kinder Building. Designed by Steven Holl Architects, this is the latest addition to an expanding museum campus, which also includes Holl’s Glassell School of Art, completed in 2018.

The new structure, a balanced composition of irregularly shaped, white and translucent volumes topped by luminous, concave roofs, features bright, dynamic interiors, created to house generously modern and contemporary art. The building is arranged horizontally, spanning two levels, and generous, naturally top-lit galleries are interspersed with courtyards, connecting inside and outside.

A cascading sculptural staircase that links lobby and gallery areas on all levels is a key centrepiece in the composition. ‘The atrium is very dramatic and I feel will likely become an iconic example in 21st museum architecture, in the same way the Guggenheim in Bilbao or New York is,’ says the museum’s director Gary Tinterow. This is an expressive building that is singular and the interior is very exciting. Our galleries are full of character, they are not the typical white box.’ Lighting design by L’Observatoire International enhances the space throughout. 

The building will open officially on 21 November with the first comprehensive installation from the museum’s international collections, including in particular Latin American and Latino art; photography; prints and drawings; decorative arts, craft, and design; and modern and contemporary art. 

A version of this article originally featured in the November issue of Wallpaper*

INFORMATION

stevenholl.com

Rimini is about to bear the cultural fruit of a productive combination of public policy, a local sense of civic responsibility and a strong architectural vision. This mini-metropolis on Italy’s Riviera Romagnola, known as the country’s party capital and the home town of Federico Fellini, is opening the doors to a new contemporary art museum. PART, or Palazzi dell’Arte Rimini, is an adaptation and renovation project by Milan based architect Luca Cipelletti. It is housed in two medieval buildings in the city’s main square - the 13th Century Palazzo dell’Arengo and the 14th Century Palazzo del Podestà.

The project has a remarkable grassroots origin story. The hills surrounding Rimini have been home to some of Europe’s most legendary discos, but also to the San Patrignano Community – a dedicated, hard-working, drug rehabilitation centre operating since 1978 for men and women. This community later established itself as a foundation. Thanks to its efforts and to charitable donations of numerous works of contemporary art over the years, it has built up an eclectic and ambitious collection. 

According to a new endowment model for Italy, artworks donated to a foundation that cannot be loaned for long periods, need instead to be made accessible to the public. This provided the City of Rimini with the opportunity to create itself a new art museum.

The restoration of the two historic buildings was only part of Cipelletti’s task. He also had to completely rethink the rooms as spaces for art, for example, ensuring there are extra surfaces for exhibition space and hanging. ‘My aim was to enhance the impressive medieval volumes, but avoid reconstructing new elements in the historical style,' he says. ‘I wanted to bring out the precious original elements, such as the materials, the Palladian wooden trusses, the large polifora windows. The interventions of technical modernisation, the paint colours on the surfaces, the flooring and the fixtures all express a balance between a contemporary aesthetic language and its historic counterpart.'

The art museum, including the ticket office and café, occupies two levels. Spatial fexibility, which allows the architecture to transform into any interior needed for each show, was key. Cipelletti, inspired from Italian masters such as BBPR, Carlo Scarpa and Franco Albini, designed the space so that the galleries place the art at centre stage. Yet it also offers the visitor visual rhythm, as well as opportunities to pause and reflect.

New, freestanding walls create additional wallspace for displays, navigating the structures' large windows. There are newly installed, near-invisible, bronze window frames; flooring and bespoke furniture in durmast oak; and plinths in stone from San Marino. The last is the same material that was used in medieval times but, seeing as it can no longer be quarried, it was recovered from an old warehouse and reused.

Attention to detail and material use, both original and contemporary, a sense of perspective and a ‘less is more' attitude guided the architect’s hand through the development of all interiors. The project is completed by a lighting concept by designer Alberto Pasetti Bombardella and a site-specific piece by artist David Tremlett.

INFORMATION

ar.ch.it

Southern China’s traditional distinctive round buildings reflect the ancient belief that the sky is round and divine and the earth is square. Now Pritzker prize-winning Japanese architect Tadao Ando has reinterpreted this vernacular and the region’s famed waterside architecture for the new contemporary He Art Museum (HEM) in Shunde.

The founder, He Jianfeng who owns industrial investment Infore Group, one of the region’s most successful businesses, hopes the museum’s striking architecture and Western works of art – by masters such as Pablo Picasso, Olafur Eliasson and Damien Hirst – together with a focus on southern China’s Lingnan culture, including a fine collection of Lingnan-style ink art and Cantonese opera, will spark serious interest in culture and the arts. 

The entrance to the 16,000 sq m spiral-shaped pavilion situated adjacent to Infore’s headquarters and plaza in the central business district, is by a path that crosses the pond encircling the museum. Inside, a monumental central skywell and floor to ceiling windows with aluminium alloy louvers flood the interiors with daylight. An imposing double-helix pair of staircases in Ando’s signature smooth silvery-grey concrete create a dramatic Guggenheimesque feel emphasized by the slightly cantilevered ascending four-storeys. There is a square ground floor gallery, bookstore and café, and circular exhibition spaces above. 

According to HEM Director Shao Shu (previously a curator at Shanghai’s Long Museum), the curvilinear interiors deliberately step away from the contemporary Western ‘white box' style gallery and embrace Chinese culture: ‘In the circular architectural form, it sets out a new form of art space, embedding the culture of the museum with more individuality. At HEM, the space has seamlessly integrated with the experience of art.'

The inaugural exhibition ‘From the Mundane World', by eminent art curator and critic Feng Boyi, perceptively highlights Shunde’s famed cuisine with a metaphorical canteen. However, the star of the show is a site-specific permanent stainless steel tree sculpture by American artist Roxy Paine, a piece titled Ballast from his Dendroids series. Its location in the Crescent Garden was cleverly planned in collaboration with Ando to link the unusual architecture and surrounding outdoors.

INFORMATION

hem.org