Archipanic selected 10 cultural architecture projects that will open their doors and mark 2017 including Lego House by Bjarke Ingels Group in Billund, Denmark, and Yves Saint Laurent Musée by Studio KO in Marrakesh but also projects by Snøhetta, Thomas Heatherwick and more.




The first appointment to 2017 is the inauguration of Herzog & de Meuron‘s Elbphilarmonie in Hamburg on January 11-12. The monumental, undulating volume of the concert hall and its 600 curved glass panes sit atop a brick building, formerly a warehouse, directly on the water, making for a dramatic presence while affording visitors a sweeping harbor view from its observation deck.




The project was first envisioned in 2003 and was supposed to inaugurate in 2010 but rising costs, legal issues with the contractor and even a parliament inquiry led the project to be put on hold. Almost € 800 millions later, the project that was initially projected to cost € 77 m will rise on the German city skyline aiming to become a new cultural meeting point.




Located in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, the King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture by Snøhetta will contain diverse cultural facilities, including an auditorium, cinema, library, exhibition hall, museum and archive. The 100.000 sqm project is organized in bulbous and pebble-shaped volumes and was already near complexion at the end of 2016. Opening is scheduled in the second half of 2017.




At Venice Architecture Biennale, Snøhetta co-founder Kjetil Trædal Thorsen responded to critics’ accusations for working in countries with authoritarian regimes. “We have to work in the world that is not the free world,” he told Dezeen, following a talk at the Danish Pavilion. “Working in the free world is easy, but working in the non-free world is really hard and we can make a bigger difference”.


Originally writen by archipanic and most pictures collected from pinterest