Luis Fernández-Galiano   Ramses II presides the hall of the Grand Egyptian Museum, a colossal structure nearing completion on the Giza Plateau. Designed in 2002 by Heneghan Peng, the construction of what will be the largest archaeological museum in the world devoted to a si

Ignacio Nieto de la Cal   A metropolis as accustomed to excesses as Dubai provides the perfect setting for an event of concepts and proposals as sensationalist as those presented in a Universal Exposition.

Themed ‘Connecting Minds, Creating the Future,’ the first major international event ever to be held in the Middle East will until 31 March 2022 exhibit proposals for development that the participating nations have set up on the premises, in the spiri

Foster + Partners   United Arab Emirates   The proposals for new transport models are presented in a building of careened forms with a laminated skin of reflecting stainless steel that prevents overheating...

AGI Architects   United Arab Emirates   The pavilion’s premises flank a large void that serves to give continuity to the public circulation route, conceived as a meeting place under the protection of an ethereal roof structure.

Grimshaw Architects   United Arab Emirates   A cyclopean canopy structure serves as a collector of the dry climate’s scant rainfall, and at the same time as a contraption for the trapping and harnessing of solar radiation.

Amann Cánovas & Maruri - Temperaturas Extremas   United Arab Emirates   Expo 2020 Dubai, themed 'Connecting Minds, Creating the Future' and counting over 200 participants, kicked off with a ceremony almost a year after it was supposed to, owing to the Covid-19 pandemic, and welcomes the public from 1 October to 31 March

Es Devlin Studio, Veretec UK   United Arab Emirates   A sheaf of stalks of cross-laminated timber forms the scenographic screen on which to project a sampling of cyberpoetry that results from online interactions of users.

OOS Architekten   United Arab Emirates   Behind a mirror facade that has the effect of magnifying Switzerland’s national flag is. an immersive installation that transports the visitor to a sea of fog high up in the Alpine mountains...

JKMM   United Arab Emirates   A snow-white prism contains a curved cavity lined in wood and bathed in brightness by a generous skylight, in an abstract echo of the lush landscapes that abound in the Nordic country...

MMBB, Ben-Avid, JPG.ARQ   United Arab Emirates   A basin of water and a membrane of stretched textile in a powerful metal framework manage to create an atmosphere that draws attention to the Amazon jungle’s water resources.

Yuko Nagayama & Associates   United Arab Emirates   With simultaneous references to Japanese Asanoha and Islamic arabesque patterns, a three-dimensional openwork represents the meeting of two ancient decorative traditions.

WOHA Architects   United Arab Emirates   An exuberant jungle shows how it is possible for architecture to embrace nature in combating the effects of climate change in cities and creating pleasurable ecosystems. The pavilion is powered by solar energy alone, and the dense vegetation lining t

Santiago Calatrava   United Arab Emirates   A series of mobile wings makes the huge host pavilion look like a bird in flight, a reference to the important role played by falconry in uniting the various tribes that formed the country.

Christian Kerez   United Arab Emirates   A bundle of slender metal diagonals breaks the traditional hierarchy of pillars and beams, altogether altering the Cartesian space inside the prism by offering fragmented views...

Estrella de Diego   For the anniversary of his death, the Patio Herreriano pays tribute to Juan Muñoz through an exhibition that delves into his boundless artistic imagination.

Elena Ochoa   Throughout her career, Cristina Iglesias has sought to connect with places and sites by means of alluringly tactile, powerfully lyrical works.

Luis Alemany   Imagine that Renzo Piano is a cell. The nucleus of his DNA would be an image of the shipyards of the city of Genoa; if the cell were Norman Foster, the helix would be the sequence of a science fiction cartoon strip; and if the cell were the duo Jacqu

Justo Isasi   What was the counterculture? This aesthetically vintage ‘notebook’ which presents the works of the architect Banchini and the curator Feireiss for the 2021 Biennale, ponders 1970s tendencies, the idea of change in the face of the architecture and the

Alberto Ballesteros   Scheherazade told stories in order to survive. The human being has always honed ingenuity at critical moments, and this book proves so. It looks at a refugee camp in the Jordanian desert where Syrian migrants forced to stay put have to harness their

Eduardo Prieto   Hassan Fathy is Egypt’s most famous architect, barring Imhotep, but is still rather unknown in Spain, where his projects are treated with the paternalism that critics tend to apply on anything exotic, or the exaggerated admiration of those professing

Abel Fernández   “Fixity is always momentary.” The line from Octavio Paz’s The Monkey Grammarian, a poetic pilgrimage to Galta, in the heart of Rajasthan, could serve as an introduction to this book by the architect and Harvard GSD professor Rahul Mehrotra, a compila

Kenneth Frampton   To attempt to expand on an account of the evolution of the Modern Movement in architecture at the time of writing is a contradictory and disturbing experience. While the level of professional talent and skill in the field is higher today, worldwide,

Norman Foster   From 6 to 8 October the Palais des Nations in Geneva was the venue of a meeting of ministers from states belonging to the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE). The member states agreed to endorse Regional Action Plan 2030, which seek

Lecumberri & Cidoncha   Spain   Going against the current of souls who in the past decades have abandoned the villages of Navarre’s Lizoáin Valley to try their luck in big cities – a tendency that has become all the more pronounced all over Spain – a young couple contemplated the c

Herzog & de Meuron   Japan   The fire that in 1872 devastated an area of the city recently renamed Tokyo was seized by the Meiji government as an opportunity to implant on its streets the European-style model of modernization that it was trying to institute in the country. This

Kazuyo Sejima & Associates   Japan   “The flow of the river is ceaseless; and its water is never the same.” So begins Hōjōki, or ‘An Account of My Hut,’ the poetic diary written by Kamo no Chōmei in 1212 which is a high moment of Japan’s classical literature. These beautiful words on ra

Expo 2020

The World Expo of 2020 has opened its doors. Already the web is flooded with night views of pavilions silhouetted against the excessive backdrop of Dubai. And proliferating alongside the myriad images are the words of a rhetoric which, while continui

AL_A (Amanda Levete Architects)   United Kingdom   Established in 2009 by Amanda Levete, the London firm AL_A has built two new buildings in the heart of the historic British university campus: the William Doo Undergraduate Centre and the Dr Lee Shau Kee Access Centre. The Undergraduate Centre com

Glenn Howells Architects   United Kingdom   In London City Island, a peninsula on the Thames, close to Canning Town Underground Station, the new home of the English National Ballet, whose artistic director is the Spanish ballerina Tamara Rojo, is a large cube whose skin of translucent white gl

Carmody Groarke   United Kingdom   The London firm of Kevin Carmody and Andy Groarke designed this museum that harbors a boat collection on the shores of Windermere, England’s largest natural lake, in Cumbria County’s Lake District National Park. Outside the town of Windermere, the si

Zaha Hadid Architects   Lithuania   With a scheme titled ‘Green Connect,’ the British firm Zaha Hadid Architects has won the competition to redevelop the train station of Vilnius and the areas around the complex. It will be part of the Rail Baltic line, for which the same architecture

Baumschlager Eberle Architekten   Poland   A scheme drawn up by the practice of Baumschlager Eberle Architekten has been placed first in the competition to build a film industry hub in the Polish city of Toruń. Among the 41 other contestants was Kengo Kuma, who capped the second prize. The pr

Snøhetta   Germany   Located in the heart of Düsseldorf, this mixed-use development commissioned to the firm Snøhetta presents two towers containing offices, apartments, and a hotel, and includes a new opera house for the city. Named Duett Düsseldorf, the new cultural sp

Luis Fernández-Galiano   Humanity faces three tragic transits: the geopolitical transit, from the hegemony of the West to the struggle between the United States and China; the energy transit, from fossil fuels to renewable sources, to mitigate the impact of climate change; a