Gare de Mons Station, Belgium
Swathes of glass and steel make up the sinuous exterior of the new Gare de Mons station in Belgium, which has been designed by Swiss-Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava. Located along the international Paris to Brussels train line in Mons, the station's sculptural structure is organised around a raised gallery volume that stretches 165 metres across the site. Conceptualised by Calatrava as a "monumental bridge", its volume traverses a series of 350-metre-long platforms and bus stops…
Isola Della Musica Opera House, Vietnam
Renzo Piano Building Workshop (RPBW), in collaboration with PTW Architects, has begun construction of the Isola della Musica, a new opera house and convention center in Hanoi, Vietnam. Inspired by the region's history of pearl cultivation, the building features a series of curved concrete shells whose forms and surfaces evoke the texture and luminosity of mother-of-pearl. The building will appear to rise from the water, establishing a visual link between the two lakes and creating…
Dubai Museum of Art
Designed by Pritzker Prize-winner Ando for Dubai-based conglomerate Al-Futtaim Group, Dubai Museum of Art, also known as DUMA, is hoped to become a cultural landmark for artists and art enthusiasts. Dubai Museum of Art will be housed in a rounded, twisting building overlooking the emirate's natural saltwater creek. Renders of the five-storey museum reveal a curving building finished with white walls, punctuated by triangular windows as they swoop and twist upwards. Its distinctive silhouette draws…
Completion of Grand Egyptian Museum
Dublin studio Heneghan Peng Architects has reached completion on the long-awaited Grand Egyptian Museum in Giza, more than three decades after plans for the project were announced. Sprawled across a 50,000-square-metre site close to the Pyramids of Giza, the colossal museum houses more than 100,000 pharaonic antiquities – many that have never been made public before. It has a total floor area of 81,000 square meters and, according to Heneghan Peng Architects, is the "largest…
Bloomberg Student Center, USA
Located on the edge of Johns Hopkins' Homewood campus, the Bloomberg Student Center was designed by BIG and interior architect Rockwell Group as the "first-ever" building to be dedicated solely to student life at the campus. Where student activities at Johns Hopkins University were once dispersed, they are now clustered at the Bloomberg Student Center, a village of 29 timber pavilions climbing the natural hill on the university's edge. …
