PUBLIC ARCHITECTURE PROJECTS - Arts & Culture

AZL Architects recently completed the Jinling Art Museum, a project commissioned by China Overseas Real Estate for its Nanjing Jiangnan Jiuxu development. The design challenge was significant, as the architects were tasked with creating a space that not only serves as an art museum but also encapsulates the rich urban history and cultural traditions of Nanjing. The theme...

The majority of the residential and educational buildings in this area were built post-war, and are distributed within an intensive green space reminiscent of an urban park, which lends this mixed-use environment a distinct atmosphere. Starting in the early 1970s, the university campus was built in several phases with explicitly late modernist characteristics. A dormito...

The newly opened Northcote Aquatic Recreation Centre (NARC) in Melbourne is a community leisure centre that wants for nothing when compared with the finest hotel pools. The facility, which has just opened its doors to a design by locally based architecture studio Warren and Mahoney, marks a departure for aquatic centres of its kind. Northcote Aquatic Recreation Centre ...

Situated on Maluan Mountain, the centre by Line+ Studio was wrapped by glass openings – "maximizing transparency" to offer expansive views of the landscape, nearby seaport and Shenzhen city. "The unique site of the station sets the stage for a truly unique atmosphere in the design," the studio said. "The design brief emphasized functionality and identity, with the goal...

Located on Al Maha Island near Doha, the museum will reference historic Islamic architecture throughout its interior, aiming to become a cultural destination for education, exhibitions and research. Herzog & De Meuron's proposed, five-storey building will have a form derived from three spheres that intersect and overlap to distinguish the internal volumes of the museum....

The steep and undulating topography provides a natural hilltop site for the building. Outdoor spaces, gardens, forests, walking, and hiking paths are planned throughout the park, preserving and enhancing the existing landscape. This parkscape connects to the art center grounds, with the ground floor of the building sitting on a naturally high plateau (elevation of +62.0m...

The open-air theatre is located within La Fontaine Park, which encompasses 34 hectares in Montreal's Le-Plateau-Mont-Royal neighbourhood. The Théâtre de Verdure, or Green Theatre, first opened in 1956. The stage portion sits on a small island in a lake, and the seating area is located just across the water. "This emblematic site is a well-known hub of arts and culture,...

KENGO KUMA UNVEILS ‘KIKI’S MUSEUM OF LITERATURE’ In honor of author Eiko Kadono, Kengo Kuma and Associates designs a hilltop museum for children‘s literature. Defined by its playful geometries finished in pink and white, the museum overlooks Nagisa Park in Edogawa City, Tokyo. The design team expects the building to open by the summer of 2023, at which point visitors ...

This brand new space is located in the Old Customs House – the Fondation J. Armand Bombardier Building. The two agencies are combining their strengths in experiential design and interior architecture to create an educational space for school workshops. The mission is to introduce groups of students to history and archaeology through a variety of activities in an environm...

The Visitor Center is the centerpiece of a comprehensive development initiative for White Crane Lake. The challenge for the designers was placing a stylistically modern cultural building aimed at increasing tourism, in a natural environment defined by its quiet ambience. The project had a multitude of functional requirements to fulfill, while balancing the need to elegan...

The museum, which was founded in 2019 by architect John Marx and artist Absinthia Vermut, encourages visitors to participate in the creation of its annual exhibition. Lonnie Graham returns as curator/director of cultural inclusion. “The Museum of No Spectators is a place where everyone is an artist,” said Marx. “We want people to come and share their creativity, reg...

Pace will soon land in Central Tokyo with a new gallery space designed by Japanese architect Sou Fujimoto. Expected to welcome visitors in Spring 2024, the three-story exhibition hub will be part of the city’s new Azabudai Hills development, taking over the lower floors of a building designed by British designer Thomas Heatherwick. Pace’s interest in Tokyo dates to ...

The space was designed by Andblack Design Studio to be used as an exhibition gallery, town hall or performance space for up to 100 people. Intended to be easily assembled and dismantled in a few days, the structure comes as a prefabricated kit that can be flat-packed and transported to various locations. Before designing the structure, the studio considered whether the...

Named the South Building, the wing introduces another permanent exhibition space to the museum, as well as more areas to display its collection of over 300,000 artefacts. The Polish Army Museum and South Building form a part of Warsaw Citadel, a 19th-century fortress in Poland's capital city. According to WXCA, the design and colouration of the South Building draw on t...

The brief was to create new zoning in the foyer for better wayfinding and orientation while setting the tone for the rest of the museum with a friendly and welcoming atmosphere. "We wanted to create a place that allows visitors to relax and draws them into a world of art and design with a new colour scheme and improved acoustics," Studio Besau-Marguerre told Dezeen. "W...

As a well-known “accomplished scholars village,” Langtou has many well-preserved old architectural spaces, such as academies of classical learning, ancestral temples, vernacular houses, streets, and alleys,. The word "lang" originally meant the marshland next to the river, and its meaning also extends to lakes or ponds. The ancient village is surrounded by numerous ponds...

Consisting of 170,000 square feet of workshop space for fabrication in wood, metal, ceramics, textile and print, the redevelopment project transforms an existing, derelict structure on a contaminated site into a center for artists, fabricators and other workers and ensures that the industrial legacy of the site will extend into the next century. Reimagining a 115-year-o...

The ambitious project involved the addition of over 5000 square metres of new facilities and spaces, a careful restoration of the palace, and a meticulous asbestos removal process. The newly transformed Paleis Het Loo now radiates the grandeur that befits one of the Netherlands’ most renowned and frequented museums. Paleis Het Loo was initially constructed in 1686 as a ...

Caernarfon Castle and its associated walled town have played a significant part in the history of Wales and the rest of the UK for much of the last millennium. The castle is among the most iconic monuments in the UK and became one of Wales’s first World Heritage Sites in 1986. The project is sited at the castle’s monumental front gatehouse, which forms part of the popul...

The “pavilion” has become a cultural and architectural preoccupation. The word immediately triggers images of the architecture of the Serpentine, MPavilion and NGV pavilion programs, which display the dominant characteristics of the type. Many cultivate a sense of singularity in their relationship to landscape or public space. Most operate as points of intensity and focu...

Oppenheim’s European office, based in Basel, Switzerland, has been working on a diverse set of projects in Albania, ranging from commercial and multifamily to hospitality, for over two years. Besa Museum represents one of its most prestigious yet, honoring the nation’s rich cultural heritage and welcoming spirit. With this latest institutional work, Oppenheim Architectur...

This transparent structural layer’s encapsulation of an original theatre built in 1971 protects and preserves its two distinguishing components: The brutalist architecture of Victor Prus and one of largest sculptural murals in the world by artist Jordi Bonet. Defined by its modernist design and monumental, intertwined sculpted work alongside prefabricated concrete indoor...

The Phive project, designed by Manuelle Gautrand Architect, is a dynamic public and cultural facility situated within Parramatta Square, a bustling business district in west Sydney. This structure emerged as the winning proposal from a competition in 2016, featuring a multitude of community spaces and exhibition areas surrounding the main library as well as the City of P...

The collaborative design by a+r Architects and NL Architects was selected as the winner proposal in the international competition for the temporary new home of the Württembergische Staatstheater Stuttgart. This interim structure will accommodate the Stuttgart State Opera and the Stuttgart Ballet during the renovation of their current venue, the Littmann Building. The...

The Space of Light, a meditation pavilion designed by Tadao Ando, was recently unveiled at the Museum SAN in Wonju, South Korea. A decade ago, Tadao Ando had already created the museum, nestled amidst the serene mountains of Wonju, South Korea. Today, the new addition marks Ando’s second meditation pavilion and the latest installment in his contemplative series. The ...

Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos' design, the first from the Madrid-based studio in the US, features a monolithic square form placed on top of the current structure, which was designed by American architect Edward Larrabee Barnes in 1984. "The NSA proposal includes a new floating contemporary art gallery on the roof and rebalances the north and south facades, communicating th...

The 14,000-square foot (1,300-square metre) wing – known as the Louis Armstrong Center – is located across the street from the original house museum, which was once the American musician's home from 1943 until his death in 1971. Caples Jefferson Architects was commissioned to create a space that could permanently house the 60,000-piece Louis Armstrong Archive – the worl...

The owner wanted to transform this two-story building into a community art space with a composite function of exhibition and restaurant, as well as an echo of local culture. With a tight budget and an implementation period of only three months, the project was considered to require an easy and flexible approach to the space to fulfill the function and ensure quality. Co...

The shrinking of the grounds also allowed the creation of much-needed buffer areas between residential buildings and the cinema grounds, with the implementation of acoustic measures, and lastly the creation of a new connection between the surrounding residential complex and the nearby town center via Štěpánka’s Park. The old cinema´s buildings were, given the difficulty...

Studio Libeskind has commenced construction on the Albert Einstein House at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, a project dedicated to preserving and displaying the legacy of the renowned physicist. The architectural design of the building features a blend of twisting, curving, and angled elements that create a cubic form. Inspired by Einstein’s drawings for projective geome...

URBANUS design studio introduces OCAT-B10 – The OCT Contemporary Art Terminal, an open ‘White Box’ Art Museum in Shenzhen. The museum renowned for its dedication to contemporary art in China since 2005, undergoes an impressive transformation. Originally, a two-floor factory building, B10, designed for disk production in Shenzhen OCT’s northern area, now emerges as OCAT-B...

Luca Poian Forms presents its Tartu Downtown Cultural Centre, a proposal for the southern Estonian city of Tartu. The project is planned alongside the city’s ongoing adaptations to present-day social and environmental changes, and is designed to support the increasingly progressive and diverse community. Led by architect Luca Poian, the team celebrates the city’s legacy ...

This geological heritage was much on the mind of architect Steve Dumez, principal and design director at EskewDumezRipple (EDR), the firm that designed the stone-inspired $67 million expansion of the city’s Bruce Museum. “There was a vision for the project that it should powerfully connect to its place, that it grow from the site,” Dumez says. “We submitted two schemes, ...

The concrete-clad pavilion is the second structure on the campus of the museum, which is dedicated to promoting Italian art and design in the United States. Quismondo, who designed the first building on the site, worked with Baeza to expand the gallery capabilities of the institution. The pavilion is partially submerged into a sloping green hill, with entrances on eith...

Set to be built in Iqaluit, a city in the northern territory of Nunavut, Dorte Mandrup's proposal was informed by the landscape and the patterns formed in snowdrifts by the area's prevailing wind. "The design of the building is informed by the landscape and the movement of the snow and the wind," said the studio. "Drawing inspiration from the patterns formed in snowdri...

Located in Kabalagala, a central district of Kampala, the art centre was commissioned by the 32° East | Ugandan Arts Trust, a not-for-profit organisation that promotes East African artists and contemporary art. The arts centre houses four artist studios and a flexible cafe that can act as an interim gallery. It is also home to the only specialist arts library in Uganda....