The Most Anticipated Architecture Projects of 2026

Last year may have brought complications and upheaval, but 2026 might well be the year of arrivals—at least from an architectural perspective. Some of the projects we anticipated last year will open at last, including OMA’s New Museum expansion in New York, the late Frank Gehry’s long-awaited Guggenheim Museum in Abu Dhabi, and Snøhetta’s Shanghai Grand Opera House. Other projects have been on the books for many decades more. But from Memphis to Tashkent, each of the following projects asserts a faith in world-building, art-making, and getting offline and into spaces together—an optimism to fuel us through the coming year.

1. Arena Santa Giulia by David Chipperfield Architects | Milan

The Olympics have a spotty record when it comes to positive, lasting effects on the urban planning of their host cities. The Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics hopes to change that with this 16,000-seat arena, a kind of three-ring circus of metal circles and glass bands illuminated by LED lights. The building is reportedly already booked out for concerts and the like; only time will tell how well it—and other Olympic arrivals like SOM’s Olympic Village, which it refers to as a “self-sustaining neighborhood”—settles into the Italian style capital.

2. Center for Contemporary Arts Tashkent by Studio KO | Tashkent

Past meets the future in Central Asia’s first contemporary arts institution, as the Paris-based Studio KO transforms a grease-stained 1912 Wilhelm Heinzelmann-designed diesel power hall into a vast and airy exhibition space. The studio pressed into service a contemporaneous administration building nearby as both back-of-house and entrance; there, a grand circular staircase moves guests towards the power hall’s basement for maximum vertical impact. Above ground, a curved concrete wall links the two structures, both of which are meant to open in March with an exhibition of Uzbek and international artists examining the notion of wisdom.

3. LACMA David Geffen Galleries by Peter Zumthor | Los Angeles

Is this, some 25 years after it was initially announced, finally LACMA’s moment? Beset by controversies over its siting and costs (and even its raison d’etre), the 900-foot-long expanse of concrete has sat near the expressway, mostly completed, since 2024. But all signs point to a spring opening, with works by Mariana Castillo Deball and Sarah Rosalena anchoring a new 75,000-square-foot outdoor plaza; a pair of restaurants, a theatre, and a commons offering amenities; and north and south wings for the institution’s vast collection.

4. Lucas Museum of Narrative Art by MAD Architects | Los Angeles

It’s fitting—perhaps even inevitable—that the Star Wars visionary’s museum devoted to illustrated storytelling resembles a spaceship preparing for takeoff. The biomorphic 300,000-square-foot building is clad in fiberglass-reinforced polymer panels for maximum futurism, while a concrete podium allows it to hover above ten acres of landscaping by MLA-Studio. Inside, a pair of theaters join classrooms and galleries, while an oculus tucked within greenery and photovoltaic panels forms the heart of a semi-enclosed plaza accessed by an arcing bridge. 

5. Memphis Art Museum by Herzog & de Meuron | Memphis

In a year full of Memphis milestones, including an expansion of the National Civil Rights Museum and a new facility for the National Ornamental Metal Museum, its beloved Memphis Brooks Museum of Art is reborn as 122,000-square-foot institution on the Mississippi River bluff. The oldest and largest art museum in the state, its 10,000-piece collection will be housed in a loop of galleries and classrooms below a full-roof sculpture garden. As one of the country’s first major museums utilizing laminated timber, the construction honors the city’s self-proclaimed identity of Hardwood Capital of the World, while its block-long community courtyard and 600 percent increase in free public space ensure the centrality of Memphis’s cultural production for years to come.

6. Obama Presidential Center by Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects | Chicago

Perhaps a presidential library is inherently political and thus subject to controversies. Barack Obama’s 19-acre legacy-maker on the south side of Chicago has had its fair share, from concerns over its location to critiques of its central, hulking granite structure by Tod Williams Billie Tsien, to lawsuits over delays and cost overruns and racial discrimination. Still, the complex will open this summer, incorporating the glassy Home Court multipurpose venue by Moody Nolan; a main center boasting art commissions from Theaster Gates, Julie Mehretu, Maya Lin, and many others; and a sprawling landscape by Michael Van Valkenburgh, which plants gardens and sledding hills across Jackson Park.

7. La Sagrada Família by Antoni Gaudí | Barcelona

Some 140 years after the groundbreaking, and a century after the visionary Catalan architect’s death, the eye-popping, soul-stirring basilica is finally believed to be nearing completion. Its 18 towers (honoring the 12 apostles, four evangelists, the Virgin Mary, and Christ himself) reference both natural geometry and Christian visions with a decidedly Gothic spirit, and their construction has spanned the Spanish Civil War, the Covid-19 pandemic, and the arrival of AI. The forthcoming finalization of the Tower of Jesus Christ will not only make the basilica the world’s tallest church but will also serve as a completion of the project, with attention soon turning to the architecture’s upkeep and accessibility.

8. Samuel H. Scripps Theater Center at Hudson Valley Shakespeare by Studio Gang | Garrison, New York

Likely the first purpose-built open-air U.S. theater to achieve LEED Platinum, this new permanent home for upstate theatre offers a timber-framed grid shell with A-frame columns, some 475 seats, and picnic lawns of native grasses on the surrounding hill. Solar shading passively cools the building, while rainwater harvesting and reuse keep things flowing. And while enhanced performance and amenity spaces enrich the performances taking place on the proscenium arch, the unfurling views of the Hudson River highlands declare that all the natural world is a stage, too.

9. Suzhou Museum of Contemporary Art by BIG | Suzhou

Unwinding before the Suzhou Ferris Wheel on the banks of the Jinji Lake, a dozen pavilions under a continuous roof comprise China’s latest contemporary art museum. Pathways and courtyards connect the individual, glazed pavilions, which house a quartet of galleries, entrance and multifunction spaces, a theater, and restaurant. The curving roof is clad in stainless steel roof tiles, while rammed earth, yellow rust stone, and terrazzo mix with natural light via clerestories inside. The overall effect nods to the tradition of lang corridors which defined the gardens of the ancient Suzhou city.

10. V&A East by O’Donnell & Tuomey | London

An exhibition of couturier Cristóbal Balenciaga inspired the form of the UK institution’s latest building, with a façade of precast concrete panels that wrap the structure like a folded dress. Just a few minutes from the V&A East Storehouse, the new structure includes a pair of public entrances that feed a central core. Galleries, including two admission-free zones devoted to “contemporary global culture,” rise above the residential Stratford Waterfront neighborhood and terminate at a roof terrace overlooking the nearby Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. Inaugurating the exhibition will be a blockbuster show, “The Music Is Black: A British Story,” and accompanying performance series, bringing long-overdue attention to the Black roots of Britain’s audio/visual culture.  

11. Waterfront Culture Center by Kengo Kuma | Copenhagen

Whether as trade routes, a source for food, or as integral hot-and-cold parts of bathing culture, water is central to city life in Copenhagen. It’s also the inspiration for a complex of museum and social spaces on a prominent corner of the city’s Paper Island. The center’s organization washes away the idea of a single entry point; instead, the harbor seems to float towards and around a series of conical volumes. Brick carries on traditional Danish craft, forming a perforated façade to let light flow inside and out. Within, open-air pools and hot paths appear in the valleys of the cones, with steam rising to remind guests that water can take as many shapes as the buildings themselves.

12. Yidan Center by Zaha Hadid Architects | Shenzen

The new headquarters for the Chen Yidan Foundation and the Yidan Prize, this 1.8 million-square-foot landmark stacks undulating arrangements of plates to form a central “canyon.” Inside, photovoltaic panels and a variable air volume system mitigates the local humidity and reduces the complex’s energy and water use; speaking of water, rain will be collected and stored in the building center. Outside, louvers shade the building without obscuring the Qianhai Bay views, while insulated double-glazed units help to ventilate. It adds up to handsome achievements including LEED Gold certification and three stars from the National Green Building Program.