If we ask ourselves what we should expect from architecture in 2025, we know that next year will be marked by major events such as the Expo, for the third time in its history in Osaka, and the Jubilee in Rome, with its urban transformations. However, there are other major construction sites around the world, all playing a major role in the cities they belong to, for which completion has been announced the incoming year; and let us not forget those we had in mind for 2024 that will instead require some additional wait, such as Citterio and Viel’s I Portali in Milan, or even the two Egyptian museums in the world: The Grand Egyptian Museum in Giza, which has opened after a decade of works, but only as a test version awaiting official inauguration, and Oma’s Museo Egizio in Turin, where the greater transformation of spaces is still to come, although the new Gallery of the Kings has been inaugurated this year.

Among the protagonists of 2025 are new urban landmarks, such as Hamburg's tallest building and Big's Tower in Berlin, but also new openings, such as Oma’s extension to the Sanaa’s New Museum in New York. Finally, there is the hope of finally being able to visit some buildings that are still waiting to be opened to the public, such as the Grand Théâtre in Rabat, designed by Zaha Hadid in her lifetime, an inauguration which still remains a mystery.

In order to expand the Manhattan-based museum of contemporary art, housed in the enigmatic, translucent Sanaa-designed building on the Bowery since 2007, Oma declared they looked to which “less didactic, more unexpected, and maybe even romantically entangled relationships could exist between two parts of a whole”. What we are looking forward to in 2025 is therefore a new volume aligning the levels of its floors with the existing ones to allow for a horizontal expansion of functions, and strengthening the museum’s public vocation and its relationship with the city, creating an interstitial space between its two bodies that channels art, activities, and the flows of a scenic façade staircase.

In 1994, an icon in glass and steel designed by Jean Nouvel, the Fondation Cartier pour l'Art Contemporain, was inaugurated on the boulevard Raspail. 40 years later, the Foundation is enriched with a new home, on Place du Palais-Royal, expected by the end of 2025, equally signed by the Domus Guest Editor of 2022. “If we have a heritage, it’s to enrich it”, Nouvel told us this year: and here it is a question of working on a Haussmann-era palace with an important history, built in 1855, with the urban transformations ordered by Napoleon III, as the Grand Hôtel du Louvre, to become over the years the home of the Grands Magasins du Louvre and the Louvre des Antiquaires.

In the Porta Nuova area, a focal point of the city’s transformation since the 1950s, Coima Sgr, in agreement with the City of Milan, is carrying out an urban regeneration project involving new public spaces, new buildings and, above all, major renovations. The complex at Via Pirelli 35, built in the 1960s, has been redesigned by Snøhetta and Park Associati. In addition to the renovation of the original building, the project includes a six-storey extension, connected to the main building by a bridge, in contrasting colour. Together with the portals by Acpv Architects, Pirelli 35 is also due to open next year.

Although they are ephemeral structures built for a specific event, the pavilions for Expo Osaka 2025 are certainly among the most eagerly awaited buildings of the year. From the giant wooden ring designed by Japanese architect Sou Fujimoto to Mario Cucinella’s Italian pavilion with its gigantic order of portals, Osaka Expo 2025 will be the opportunity par excellence to experience this type of architecture, combining spectacle and reflection on contemporary architecture. The Expo, which will be held on the artificial island of Yumeshima from April 13 to October 13, 2025, will host more than 160 countries with their respective contributions.

Of the three new museums planned for UAE’s artificial island of Saadiyat, only Jean Nouvel’s Louvre, which opened in 2017, has been inaugurated. The other two, Norman Foster’s Zayed National Museum and Frank O. Gehry’s Guggenheim, are scheduled to open to the public in 2025. The construction of the world’s largest Guggenheim was first announced in 2006, with a completion date of twenty years later. With an area of around 30,000 square metres and eleven conical structures contrasting with the monolithic volumes, Frank Gehry described the project as “a deliberate disorder that achieves clarity”.

The Jubilee, marking last months with forecasts of a record number of pilgrims – there has been talk of more than 30 million over the course of the Jubilee year – is about to begin and has opened a multiplicity of construction sites across the Italian Capital, with completion dates being constantly redefined. The vision, however, is to leave an upgraded public realm of the city as the event legacy, translated into services and, above all, spaces. In addition to the redesigned Piazza dei Cinquecento (Termini station, with Tvk), IT’S studio will sign the new Piazza Risorgimento, by the gates of the Vatican, 18,000 square metres where asphalt will be replaced by limestone and new trees, while OneWorks will deliver a similar surface in Piazza San Giovanni in Laterano, where the cosmatesque floor of the basilica will be extended into the urban space.

One of Zaha Hadid's last works, the Grand Théâtre de Rabat has a particularly controversial history. Work on the largest theatre on the African continent began in 2014, but has suffered major delays due to changes in the design and significant increases in construction costs, as well as the death of Hadid in 2016 and the subsequent change of team. With an area of 55,000 square metres and 1,800 seats, plus an open-air amphitheatre for up to 7,000 people, the Grand Théâtre was completed in 2021 but has never been inaugurated. A glimmer of hope for a hypothetical opening in 2025 is the appearance of the building’s image on the new 20 dirham banknote, but nothing has yet been officially announced.

The Norwegian studio’s project, currently under development in collaboration with local firm Ecadi, is the winner of an international competition to help redefine the Houtan area, the former site of Expo 2010. Crucial to Shanghai’s image, the complex joins Snøhetta’s dense portfolio of performing arts centres, with opera houses in Oslo and Busan, and follows their other major Chinese project, the Beijing Library. In Houtan, three auditoriums and their facilities are gathered under the shape of a large fan that unfolds to become both a roof and a public, open spiral staircase.

Designed by Danish firm BIG – led by Bjarke Ingels, Domus Guest Editor for 2025 – the Edge East Side Berlin, more commonly known as the “Amazon Tower”, is a new architectural landmark for the city of Berlin, standing over 140 metres tall. Located next to the Warschauerstrasse intersection, the skyscraper is almost complete. With the first two floors dedicated to public activities, it is expected to be opened to the city within the next year.

The decades-long history of the Hafencity district, born from the transformation of Hamburg’s port area, is a symbol for the many regeneration projects that have taken shape in many European cities, and is represented in the architectural imaginaire by an icon such as Herzog and De Meuron’s Elbphilarmonie. The project to flank it with another landmark, signed this time by another Domus Guest Editor, namely David Chipperfield, started in 2017. Completion of the Elbtower, a wave of glass textured with aluminium elements, destined to become the city’s tallest building, has experienced setbacks due to funding difficulties, but recent news reports speak of a possible resumption of works.

The project for a museum dedicated to visual storytelling in all its forms and media was conceived many years ago by George Lucas, the director and creator of Star Wars and Indiana Jones, and his wife Mellody Hobson, with an ever-growing collection that includes painting, sculpture, photography, comics, publishing and, of course, film. The building that will house the project, designed by Ma Yansong’s MAD Architects, is expected to be completed along next year to open early in the following year, with its 28,000 square metres of exhibition space and nearly 300-seat auditorium located in Exposition Park near the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.