Magazine

On March 20, Louis Vuitton opened its transformed Ginza Naminki store in Tokyo, where Jun Aoki has wrapped the building in wavy dichroic glass and Peter Marino has designed the interiors.  John Hill

Barcelona's Miralles Tagliabue EMBT has been selected to design the Shenzhen Conservatory of Music, one of ten new cultural landmarks being funded by the Shenzhen Municipal Government for sites in and around the Chinese metropolis.  John Hill

Nearly one year after Alphabet's Sidewalk Labs abandoned plans for a mixed-use "smart neighborhood" on twelve acres of Toronto's Quayside, Waterfront Toronto has launched a competition to find a development partner for the site.

The Shenzhen Municipal Planning and Natural Resources Bureau has announced the winners of two international design competitions: for the Shenzhen Opera House and the Shenzhen Maritime Museum, two of ten new cultural attractions in the city. John Hill

Indian architect Bijoy Jain and his office, Studio Mumbai, have won the 14th Alvar Aalto Medal, conferred by the Alvar Aalto Foundation, Museum of Finnish Architecture (MFA), Finnish Architectural Society, Finnish Association of Architects (SAFA), and the City of Helsinki. John Hill

French architects Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal have been selected as laureates of the 2021 Pritzker Architecture Prize, the award given out by the Hyatt Foundation and widely considered "architecture’s highest honor." John Hill

Construction has begun on "Welcome, feeling at work," the office building in Milan's Parco Lambro district designed by Kengo Kuma & Associates for Europa Risorse. John Hill

Hugh Newell Jacobsen, an architect based in Washington, DC, known for high-end houses organized as pavilions with gabled forms, died at an assisted-living center in Front Royal, Virginia, on March 4 — exactly one week shy of his 92nd birthday. John Hill

La Biennale di Venezia has announced that the famous "Italian architect, designer, scenographer, artist and critic naturalized as a Brazilian citizen" will be given a Special Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement in memoriam when the Biennale opens in May. John Hill

The Cultural Landscape Foundation (TCLF) has announced that MARABAR, Elyn Zimmerman's site-specific installation in Washington, DC, has been saved from demolition and will be moved to a new location. John Hill

As part of Reconstructions: Architecture and Blackness in America, now on display at MoMA, a sign bearing Philip Johnson's name has been covered by the manifesto of the Black Reconstruction Collective. John Hill

The Underline is a multi-phase transformation of the space beneath Miami’s MetroRail into a park, trail, and art destination. The first phase, a half-mile section in downtown, opened to the public on Friday, February 26. John Hill

Foster + Partners has released a website with immersive tours of the exteriors and interiors of 22 of the firm's UK projects, from the 1966 Creek Vean House to the 2017 headquarters for Bloomberg. John Hill

Metsä Group, Aalto University, and the Finnish Ministry of the Environment have announced the winners of the Urban Adaptation competition, which asked architects and students to design adaptable modular buildings made from wood. John Hill

US President Joe Biden has revoked Executive Order 13967, "Promoting Beautiful Federal Civic Architecture," that former President Donald Trump signed on December 18, 2020, one month before the end of his term. John Hill

The Chicago Architecture Biennial and the Danish Arts Foundation (DAF) have announced the winning team for DAF Open Call, a commission for Chicago's North Lawndale neighborhood that is part of the fourth Biennial opening in September. John Hill

Two years after Diller Scofidio + Renfro's competition-winning design was unveiled, the Centre for Music at the Barbican has been cancelled, with the City of London focusing on refurbishing the Barbican Centre instead. John Hill

The Tainan Public Library, designed by Dutch firm Mecanoo and Taiwan's MAYU architects, opened last month in Tainan City, in southern Taiwan. John Hill

A team led by James Corner Field Operations, the landscape architecture firm behind New York's High Line, has won the competition to transform an unused railway in London into the Camden Highline. John Hill

London's National Gallery has announced its "NG200" plans, which include reconfiguring parts of The Sainsbury Wing, designed by Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown in 1991, leading up to the museum's 2024 bicentennial. John Hill

The UOP Fragrances Factory, designed by Richard Rogers and Renzo Piano before the duo won the competition for the Centre Pompidou in 1973, has been demolished. John Hill

The Hudson River Park Trust has unveiled plans for Gansevoort Peninsula, a 5.5-acre project that will include Manhattan's first public beach. Designed by James Corner Field Operations, it is located one block from the southern tip of the High Line. John Hill

Francis Kéré's design of the new national assembly building to be located in Porto-Novo, the capital of Benin, was inspired by the palaver tree, "the age-old West African tradition of meeting under a tree to make consensual decisions in the interest of a community." John Hill

As announced by the Obama Foundation on February 3rd, the years-long federal review process of plans to build the Obama Presidential Center in Jackson Park on Chicago's South Side is complete, meaning the project will break ground later this year. John Hill

Adelaide’s Aboriginal Art and Cultures Centre (AACC) has released updated renderings of its proposed 11,500 square meter building designed by New York's Diller Scofidio + Renfro and Australia's Woods Bagot. John Hill

Three years after Amazon opened The Spheres at its downtown Seattle headquarters, the tech company has unveiled The Helix, part of its new HQ2 in Arlington, Virginia. NBBJ is the architect for both biophilic designs. John Hill

A list of 449 works nominated for the 2022 European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture – Mies van der Rohe Award has been released. A second list of nominees will follow in the fall in response to the coronavirus pandemic and a lengthening of the biennial award's timeline accordingly. John Hill

For the second year in a row, a building on Chicago's South Side has received the most votes in our Building of the Year poll on American-Architects.com. In 2019 it was an academic building at Illinois Tech. For 2020 it's the dynamic orange building that Juan Moreno's firm, JGMA, designed for... John Hill

The World Around's annual summit was held on Saturday, January 30, at the Guggenheim Museum, where the organization is in residence this year. Recorded presentations and live discussions were broadcast to the strictly online audience. John Hill

The Deutsches Architekturmuseum (DAM) has announced that the DAM Preis for Architecture in Germany 2021 has been awarded to MVRDV and N-V-O Nuyken von Oefele Architekten for WERK12, a five-story mixed-use building near Munich's Ost station. John Hill

The iconic high-tech building designed by Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers will close from late 2023 until 2027, the same year the Parisian institution will celebrate its 50th anniversary. John Hill

The deadline for voting for the US Building of the Year is January 31. The winner that you decide will be announced on the first day of February online and in our World Newsletter. John Hill

Scottish architect Kate Macintosh and Ghanaian-Scottish architect, academic, and novelist Lesley Lokko are this year’s recipients of the Jane Drew Prize and Ada Louise Huxtable Prize, respectively, part of the W Awards given out by The Architectural Review and Architects’... John Hill

Winners in the seven awards and competition programs of the Tamayouz Excellence Award for 2020 have been announced. Established in 2012, the awards draw attention to architecture in Iraq and other parts of the Middle East. John Hill

London's Design Museum has named the "Teeter-Totter Wall," designed by architects Ronald Rael and Virginia San Fratello with Colectivo Chopeke, as the Beazley Design of the Year 2020. John Hill

The Vessel, the 150-foot (45m) tall climbable sculpture designed by Heatherwick Studio for the Hudson Yards development on Manhattan's West Side, has closed indefinitely after a third suicide in less than one year. John Hill