2018 – Archipanic selected 7 great cultural architecture projects by David Chipperfield, Rem Koolhaas, Kengo Kuma and more which are set to inaugurate this year. The buildings span from entertainment centers to libraries and museums.
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Grand Egyptian Museum
By Henegan Peng Architects @ Giza, Egypt.
Located at the edge of the first desert plateau between the pyramids and Cairo, the Grand Egyptian Museum by Henegan Peng Architects will feature a 24,000 square meter permanent exhibition space hosting also the Tutankhamen collection, a children’s museum, conference centre, conservation centre and gardens. The new Giza Museum is defined by a 50m level difference, created as the Nile carves its way through the desert. A front surface defined by a veil of translucent stone will transform from day to night.
Victoria & Abert Dundee
By Kengo Kuma @ Dundee, Scotland – UK.
Kengo Kuma’s first British project in the UK is set to become Scotland’s first design museum: The Victoria & Albert Dundee. The project featuring horizontal concrete striations merging the geography of Scottish cliffs with the design of a vessel fending the waters with a pointed corner that projects out like a prow. Zero Carbon Technologies including wind turbines, solar panels, photovoltaic cells, biomass and river source heat pumps will be at the core of a larger seafront development.
Taipei Performing Arts Centre
By OMA @ Taipei, Taiwan.
The Taipei Performing Arts Centre, TPAC, by Rem Koolhaas – OMA will inaugurate a theatre complex in the Taiwanese capital. The new cultural venue will host three auditoriums, including a 1,500-seat grand theatre and a pair of 800-seat playhouses, one of which will be contained inside a huge sphere.
Royal Academy of Arts
By David Chipperfield @ London, UK.
In May 2018, the Royal Academy of Arts will celebrate its 250th birthday by opening the doors to newly transformed spaces renovated by David Chipperfield and with an expanded exhibition programme alongside free displays of art and and a new home for architecture. A new cultural campus will unite our two buildings, Burlington House on Piccadilly and Burlington Gardens.
Qatar National Museum
By Jean Nouvel @ Doha, Qatar.
It might be the good year to see Jean Nouvel’s Qatar National Museum finally opened to the public. Inspired by rose-like formations of crystal that appear in the desert sand, “the building represents modernity and the audacity of this country but it also refers to its ancient history. That’s why I choose a symbolic image that evokes the passage of time” said Jean Nouvel. The Museum is composed of a ring of low-lying and linked pavilions, which encircle a large courtyard area and existing palace.
Helsinki Central Library
By ALA Architects @ Helsinki, Finland.
At the end of 2018, Helsinki Central Library in the heart of the Finnish capital. The 16.000 square meter library project will consist almost entirely of public spaces working as the epicentre of the city’s impressive public library network. ALA Architects designed a three-storey structure comprising a contorted timber volume. Public activities and group study areas will occupy an active ground floor beneath the curving wooden surfaces, while a traditionally quiet reading room will be located above and a contemporary media facility and public sauna will be housed in the middle.
Tower of Voices @ Flight 93 National Memorial
By Paul Murdoch Architects with Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects – Pennsilvania, US.
In September, Flight 93 National Memorial in Pennsylvania is scheduled to open the Tower of Voices by Paul Murdoch Architects, in collaboration with Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects. The 93-foot tower will be part of the commemoration of the United Airlines plane that crashed on September 11, 2001 and will will feature 40 chimes, a symbolic representation of the 40 passengers and crew who perished in the crash of Flight 93. Openings between the structural elements allow wind to pass through to activate the chimes, anticipated as aluminum tubes from five to ten feet long.