Here’s a top 10 list of new architectural places around the world that opened (or significantly debuted) in 2025 from cultural icons to visionary public spaces and landmark buildings:
1. Taichung Green Museumbrary by SANAA
Taichung Green Museumbrary is Taiwan’s first venue combining a municipal art museum and public library. Opening at the end of 2025, it sits on the northern edge of Taichung Central Park, with a floor area of about 58,000 square metres. The architecture features eight interconnected yet independently articulated volumes, forming an integrated space for both museum and library. It expresses a new cultural identity through openness, transparency, and fluidity. In harmony with its environment, the large volumes are divided into smaller, human-scale cubes and wrapped in a silver-white façade that reflects and softly echoes the surrounding park and cityscape, blending into context. Elevated structures create shaded, multi-layered plazas beneath, inviting greenery, breeze, and sunlight. With entrances from all directions—city or park—the building welcomes visitors into an open, inclusive cultural space, offering a new architectural landscape inspired by nature.
2. Zayed National Museum by Foster + Partners
Zayed National Museum, the national museum of the United Arab Emirates, is located at the heart of Saadiyat Cultural District Abu Dhabi. Guided by the enduring values of its Founding Father, the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, it is the most comprehensive source of information on the nation’s history and culture, tracing the story of this land from ancient times to present day.
The museum will be the centrepiece of the Saadiyat Cultural District in Abu Dhabi and will showcase the history, culture and, more recently, the social and economic transformation of the Emirates. Architecturally, the aim has been to combine a highly efficient, contemporary form with elements of traditional Arabic design and hospitality to create a museum that is sustainable, welcoming and culturally of its place. Celebrating Sheikh Zayed’s legacy and commitment to nature, the museum features a landscaped garden based on a timeline of his life, which physically links the museum to the coast.
3. Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain by Ateliers Jean Nouvel
4. Suzhou Museum of Contemporary Art by BIG by Bjarke Ingels Group
Commissioned by Suzhou Harmony Development Group and designed by BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group in collaboration with ARTS Group and Front Inc., Suzhou MoCA is located along the Jinji Lake waterfront as a new venue for contemporary art, design, and public life in China. The museum will officially open its doors to the public in 2026.
The architecture of the museum is rooted in the tradition of Suzhou’s gardens by reimagining the ‘lang’ 廊- a long, covered corridor that traces a path. Ten interconnected pavilions are unified beneath a continuous roof whose gentle undulations recall the silhouette of tiled eaves. The remaining two pavilions will be built next year, extending over Jinji Lake and linking to the main structure via covered pathways.
“Suzhou is the cradle of the Chinese garden. Our design for the Suzhou Museum of Contemporary Art is conceived as a garden of pavilions and courtyards. Individual pavilions are woven together by glazed galleries and porticoes, creating a Chinese knot of interconnected sculpture courtyards and exhibition spaces. Weaving between the legs of the Ferris wheel, the museum branches out like a rhizome, connecting the city to the lake. The result is a manmade maze of plants and artworks to get lost within. Its nodular logic only becomes distinctly discernible when seen from the gondolas above. Against the open space of the lake, the gentle conical curvature of the roofs forms a graceful silhouette on the waterfront. From above, the stainless roof tiles form a true fifth facade.” – Bjarke Ingels, Founder & Creative Director, BIG
5. GEM The Grand Egyptian Museum by heneghan peng architects
The site for the Grand Egyptian Museum, located at the edge of the first desert plateau between the Pyramids and Cairo, is defined by a 50 metre level difference, created as the Nile carves its way through the desert to the Mediterranean, a geological condition that has shaped Egypt for over 3000 years.
The Pyramids, are located in the desert on the plateau 2km from the Museum site, whilst the site for the museum is located both in the valley and on the plateau bridging the two geological zones.
The design of the Museum utilises the level difference to construct a new ‘edge’ to the plateau, a surface defined by a veil of translucent stone that transforms from day to night. The Museum nestles or cleaves between the level of the Nile Valley never rising over the level of the plateau (above or behind).
A 3-dimensional structure inscribed by a set of visual axes from the site to the three Pyramids defines the framework within which the museum emerges, from the overall scale of the site to the smallest of details.
The approach to the museum is a series of layers, whereby the visitor moves through a monumental forecourt, a shaded entrance court and a grand staircase that ascends to plateau level, the level at which the galleries are located from which there is an unparalleled elevated view of the pyramids.
The Museum is envisaged as a cultural complex of activities devoted to Egyptology and will contain 24,000sqm of permanent exhibition space, almost 4 football fields in size, a children’s museum, conference and education facilities, a large conservation centre and extensive gardens on the 50hA site. The collections of the museum include the Tutankhamen collection, that is currently housed in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.
6. Le Grand Palais by Chatillon Architectes
Transformed by Chatillon Architectes, the major restoration has been underway since 2021. Although conceived as a temporary Beaux-Arts palace, the Grand Palais has become one of the most timeless monuments in Paris. Built by the French Republic for the 1900 Universal Exhibition, the Grand Palais is nestled in the heart of the city and serves as an icon of artistic excellence. Over the course of a century, the building became the international showcase of the French cultural scene, hosting the world’s greatest exhibitions and events.
Throughout history, the Grand Palais faced fragmentation and neglect, and was even once slated for demolition. Over time, areas of the building have been closed off to the public, resulting in limited access to events and visitor disorientation.
Chatillon Architectes, known for their adept transformation of existing structures, has approached this project with a focus on enhancing public access, improving natural daylight, and reconnecting the Grand Palais with its urban surroundings.
For the first major renovation in the building’s storied history, the architects drew on thousands of archival plans and documents to inform the ambitious project. Aimed at creating a new sense of unity and coherence in the building’s varied spaces, the restoration’s impact is substantial.
7. Natural History Museum Abu Dhabi by Mecanoo
Abu Dhabi unveiled plans for the Natural History Museum Abu Dhabi, which features some of the rarest wonders of natural history ever found. Visitors travel on a 13.8-billion-year journey through time and space, which includes a thought-provoking perspective into a sustainable future for planet Earth. The new museum, is located in the emirate’s Saadiyat Cultural District, which is establishing itself as one of the world’s leading cultural centres.
Covering an area of more than 35,000 sqm, lead architects Mecanoo designed the Natural History Museum Abu Dhabi to resonate with natural rock formations, reflecting the museum’s goal of improving understanding of and engagement with the natural world. Every element of the design uses geometry as an overriding theme, with pentagonal shapes resembling cellular structures. Also playing an important role in the design are water and vegetation, potent symbols of life in the desert. In addition to the gallery display areas, the museum includes temporary exhibition spaces for special events and theatre facilities.
8. Fenix Museum of Migration by MAD architects
MAD’s first completed cultural project in Europe, Fenix, is a new art museum about migration, located in Rotterdam’s historic port district. The museum officially opened to the public on May 15, 2025.
Rotterdam is one of Europe’s most prominent cities of migration, home to residents from over 170 countries and regions. Historically, it was also a major departure point for millions of Europeans who set sail for North America.
In 1940, a devastating bombing leveled the center of Rotterdam. Since then, countless world-renowned architects have been drawn to the city, transforming it into a global hub for contemporary architecture.
Beginning in 2016, the Droom en Daad Foundation partnered with the City of Rotterdam to launch a citywide cultural revitalization initiative. In 2018, the foundation commissioned MAD to transform the historic Fenix warehouse into a museum of migration.
MAD has transformed this century-old warehouse into a cultural landmark that bridges past and present, paying tribute to the journeys of millions of migrants.
“Everything is in motion people, time, light, the sea,” said Ma Yansong. “This building invites us to rethink moments of arrival and departure, and to reflect on the reasons we set out in the first place.”
9. Shenzhen Science & Technology Museum by Zaha Hadid Architects
The Shenzhen Science & Technology Museum in the Guangming District is now open. Showcasing the scientific endeavour, ground-breaking research and future possibilities of technology, this new institution will explore the power of science and the technological advancements defining our future.
Designed as a leading visitor destination of the Greater Bay Area — the world’s largest metropolitan region with its population approaching 100 million residents — the museum will collaborate with the region’s renowned tech industries, universities, schools and research centres to cultivate innovation, as well as present the ongoing inventiveness that places Shenzhen as a global leader in the development of new technologies.
Adjacent to Guangming Station of Shenzhen’s metro network, the design responds to its location as a solid, spherical volume facing the city and defining the southeast corner of the new Science Park.
Extending westwards into the park, the building’s volume stretches and transforms into a dynamic sequence of outdoor terraces overlooking the park. These terraces are functioning extensions of the interior galleries that surround the grand central atrium, creating a significant new civic space for the city.
10. Naples Underground Central Station ‘Centro Direzionale’ by Benedetta Tagliabue – EMBT Architects
In 2004 the City of Naples commissioned several internationally renowned architects, such as Sir Norman Foster, Massimiliano Fuksas, Alvaro Siza, Domenique Perault, Karim Rashid and Benedetta Tagliabue to build a train station for the city’s new metropolitan line.
Known as the triple A,” art, architecture and archaeology” is the leitmotiv of the project, the intervention aims to give a highly recognizable identity to the formerly homogeneous setting.
With the design of this subway and train station ‘Centro Direzionale di Napoli’, Benedetta Tagliabue – EMBT generates new correlations between the city’s natural volcanic ground and the original 1970’s design of the artificial site by Kenzo Tange.
The new station, with its underground link to the city, will transform the area’s artificial surface into a complex topography with many different levels for pedestrians and an outstanding building with an intricate tectonic roof structure. Diverse public space will allow a physical reception of the city’s present and past and charts the topographical movements and dynamics of the local population.
