In architecture, as in many other disciplines, 2023 might result in a peculiar year: neither the classic big announcements year nor an anonymous period of transition, but an apparently suspended time. Projects that had been stopped at the last mile by the pandemic are now completed, while others, that had been held at the start, are now rushing to make up for the months lost. There are long-delayed openings (some were already among the most announced for 2022, such as Renzo Piano’s Istanbul Modern), deferred completions such as Mario Cucinella’s Unipol tower in Milan, which has had to yield precedence, and specialized workers to the Genova San Giorgio bridge works, and stories nearing a geological timing scale, such as OMA’s Factory International in Manchester. The geographies of this trend are global, from Africa to America to Asia, whose exchanges with Europe are no longer unidirectional (the library by Snohetta opens in Beijing, while in Paris-Batignolles a housing building signed by the Chinese firm MAD has just opened).
The most anticipated buildings of 2023
Long-awaited, often postponed, built around culture and urban space, focused on the enhancement of the human dimension and the historical value of architecture, these 15 projects represent the trends of a year suggesting a very peculiar script.
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- Giovanni Comoglio
- 30 December 2022
It is a trend that involves the urban scale — we were waiting for 2023 see the new waterfront in Chicago, we will see the ones in Bremen by Cobe and in Genoa by Renzo Piano instead — and the scale of the — still complex — interactions between art, architecture, material and digital dimension: will Christo’s latest Mastaba, financed with NFT, succeed in seeing the light of day in the UAE?
But the tendency that sounds more promising for 2023 is in any case a trend of rethinking, of re-elaboration: a multiplicity of projects that extend, enhance, integrate or renovate buildings of important historical value, or valorize art and cultural heritage. Kengo Kuma’s portal for Angers cathedral, Jeanne Gang's new spaces at the American Museum of Natural History, Lina Ghotmeh’s Serpentine Pavilion speak to us of an attention to an existing tangible and intangible treasure that, especially in these post-pandemic years, has become a priority again in our way of inhabiting the planet, even in opposition to seemingly limitless dynamics of expansion and extraction of resources.
The opening of the learning and sharing space designed by Snøhetta with local partner ECADI was already announced for the end of 2022, and we look forward to visiting this architecture, strongly marked by transparency, revealing itself to the outside, emphasising its spaces through the large circulation space connecting the northern and southern sides, a valley sculpted by steps and sheltered by a canopy of columns evoking a ginkgo forest.
The new building conceived to replace the existing museum located between the Galata district and the harbour was already among our 2022 most anticipated, but a series of delays has put it back on the list of architectures that will belong to the following year. The project will actually play a major role as a crucial urban transformation node as well, between the old city to the west, the Bosphorus to the south, Tophane Park to the north and the Galataport area to the east.
The 230,000-square-metre steel, glass and shotcrete structure, designed by Jeanne Gang's studio, is now complete, and scheduled to open in February 2023. The project connects many of the museum buildings, creating a continuous campus across four blocks, transforming the cultural landscape of the city and embodying one of the museum's essential messages: all forms of life are connected.
Factory International arts center was conceived in 2014. However, between delays and rising costs — also due to Brexit — the genesis of the OMA-designed building has taken longer than expected. Interdisciplinary programming will take advantage of the flexible layout of the interior, and will also involve spaces outside the building, with markets, events and pop-ups. An exhibition of inflatable sculptures by Yayoi Kusama will mark the opening of the main space.
Phase Three of the Battersea Power Station area transformation is the Electric Boulevard, a new pedestrianized high street connecting the new underground station with the historical Power Station. The residential building flanking the Boulevard on the eastern side, housing retail spaces and a playground as well, is designed by Gehry Partners; the building on the western side is designed by Foster + Partners and it includes offices, retail, food and beverage, and a 164-room hotel.
Another key part of the transformation of the Battersea area is the arrival of the new Apple offices inside Battersea Power Station. Developed around a large atrium surrounded by trees and with a glazed roof, the different levels of the space designed by Foster + Partners will cover 46 thousand square metres. The balconies clad with handmade bricks, from the same quarry in Gloucestershire from which the power station's original bricks came, are one of the design choices made in partnership with English Heritage conservation experts.
In addition to Arc de Triomphe, Wrapped, Christo had asked his nephew Vladimir Yavachev to realize The Mastaba, an enormous ziggurat about 500 metres high, consisting of 410,000 multicoloured oil barrels and ten elevation towers for final assembly. To finance the project, the two artists’ foundation will sell one NFT for each barrel, at a maximum of one thousand dollars each. The United Arab Emirates, where the work is supposed to be realized, have not yet officially granted governmental approval, but several refusals have never managed to stop Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s projects: we will observe how the story develops in 2023.
This project is chosen as a representative of a multiplicity of architectures nearing completion in different big cities across different areas of the African continent. The Niamey-based firm founded by Mariam Kamara has designed a cultural center for the capital city of Niger, aiming to fight the shortage of cultural outlests in the urban context. Developed in collaboration with David Adjaye within the Rolex mentoring program, inspired by Hausa and Songhai traditional architecture, it combines climate mitigation, sustainable choice of local materials, rainwater harvesting and solar energy, urban agriculture. It “draws its programme from local community conversations about culture, traditions and aspirations”.
immagina via ateliermasomi.com
image via ateliermasomi.com
From the monumental 75-metre atrium to the greenhouse on the roof, the 124-metre high elliptical tower is intended as a fundamental completion piece for the Porta Nuova area, a symbol of Milan’s transformation in the last decade. Combining the double skin envelope with an optimal study of the shape, the building aims to become a benchmark in terms of energy efficiency . It is expected to open in 2023, once the reticular “petal-shaped” truss structure protecting the entrance is completed.
image via mcarchitects.it
Renzo Piano has designed and donated another project for his city, Genoa: the new building complex aiming to redevelop the former Fiera area should be completed by the end of 2023. The idea behind the project is to reintegrate the sea into the city, resulting in two hull-shaped buildings built on an artificial island (they will house 200 flats, all destined for the upper end of the market), a sports hall and multiple public spaces.
Four buildings complete the new harbour neigbourhood Überseestadt, hosting public functions in the ground floor halls , and housing and offices on top of the halls, around green courtyards. Colours, detailing and materials aim to channel both a general coherence of the whole intervention and a specific character for each of the four buildings. Placed at the end of the harbor, the project will connect the new interventions to the historical city .
The Angevin Gothic cathedral, rebuilt between the 12th and 13th centuries over a pre-existing Romanesque one, originally had an entrance canopy, which was however demolished in 1807. It was later considered too complex to rebuild it, due to insufficient information on its features. A competition has now been launched and won by Kengo Kuma and Associates’ project: a gallery opening through five archivolts, aiming to create a harmonious dialogue between medieval and contemporary architecture. Construction work should be completed within the year.
Antonio Citterio and Patricia Viel sign the transformation of the new urban space in Midtown Manhattan, for the Rockefeller Group: in addition to the necessary multifunctional amphitheatre dedicated to retail, food and cultural activities on approximately 6,000 square metres, the centrepiece of the intervention is the system of pathways and open spaces making the East Plaza and Concourse Plaza two efficiently integrated components of the lively organic system of surrounding urban space.
Construction has started in September 2021 for the portal designed by BIG as an access to the CityLife district opened. Stretching over a length of 200 metres and a total floor surface of 53,000 square metres, the structure — two buildings, Citywave East and West, connected by a curved roof — is designed to accommodate public spaces and workspaces. The buildings feature a curtain wall maximizing the brightness of interior spaces, and include panoramic terraces.
For the 22nd edition of the initiative — inaugurated with a project by Zaha Hadid in 2000 — the Paris-based Lebanese architect proposes a new stage of her Archaeology of the future, articulated through domesticity: a reflection on food and cooking leading to “an eco-systemic and more sustainable communion with the Earth”, linking the organic shape of the pavilion to a sense of unity, echoing the design of a table and inviting interaction through the conformation of the seating.