The Edo-Tokyo Museum has reopened to the public following a multi-year renovation, unveiling a series of scenographic interventions and installations designed by OMA under the direction of Shohei Shigematsu. Marking the firm's first public project in Japan, the commission forms part of the broader renewal of the museum's iconic building by Metabolist architectKiyonori Kikutake. Originally opened in 1993 as the first museum dedicated to the history of Tokyo, the institution traces the city's evolution from the Edo period to the present day, and the new interventions aim to strengthen its relationship with contemporary audiences while preserving the identity of Kikutake's architecture.
This week's selection of architecture news and projects invites a rethinking of the social, cultural, and environmental role of design across diverse scales and geographies. From community-led efforts to preserve modern heritage, such as the campaigns surrounding the Îlot 8 housing complex in France and a renewed photographic attention toward Croatia's Split 3 district, to broader reflections on architecture's agency in the face of climate change and social transformation, many of the featured works question how architecture adapts over time and how it engages with collective life. This week's compilation also highlights architects expanding their practice beyond buildings through furniture, lighting, and object design, while three projects explore immersive relationships between landscape, climate, and observation in remote or environmentally sensitive contexts, from Arctic Norway to the oasis environments of the United Arab Emirates and the desert landscapes of Saudi Arabia.
Southeast Asia is often narrated as a kind of architectural playground—an arena where modern and contemporary ideals have been tested at full scale through singular, iconic buildings. One can trace an easy lineage through names that have helped shape the region's skyline imagination: Paul Rudolph's Lippo Centre in Hong Kong and The Concourse in Singapore, I.M. Pei's OCBC Centre and Hong Kong's Bank of China Tower, Norman Foster's Supreme Court of Singapore and the HSBC Main Building in Hong Kong, Ron Phillips' Hong Kong City Hall, Moshe Safdie's Marina Bay Sands. Yet this familiar history—told through objects, colonialism, authorship, and signature forms—risks missing a deeper, more consequential layer of influence: the planning logics and infrastructural frameworks that have quietly structured how these cities expand, densify, and distribute everyday life.
The figure of Tithonus in Greek mythology offers a reflection on the paradox of permanence. In pleading with Zeus for immortality, he forgot to request eternal youth, resulting in a life of endless aging. Over time, his body deteriorates, turning immortality itself into a burden. The narrative suggests a fundamental contradiction: permanence, when detached from the capacity for change, ceases to be a desirable quality. Instead of stability, it produces accumulated decay without adaptation.
Historically, architecture has often fallen into the "Tithonus Trap." Materials are specified to resist time, systems are detailed to prevent change, and buildings are conceived as fixed images. Yet, this pursuit of the static rarely survives the reality of the elements. Between the moment of design—often associated with precise and controlled representations—and the lifespan of a building, surfaces inevitably weather, shift in appearance, and lose their initial finish. Aging is often interpreted as loss rather than as part of the architectural language.
Modernism in architecture was perhaps the first truly global building design philosophy. Established at the beginning of the twentieth century, its early proponents were heavyweights from Europe, such as Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius, and Mies van der Rohe. In 1923, Le Corbusier published his seminal written work, usually translated into English as Towards a New Architecture. Newness, and a rejection of history, was one of the central tenets of modernism. This manifested itself in the use of new materials such as steel and concrete, which gave rise to an unprecedented freedom of formal expression.
By the middle of the twentieth century, Modernism was adopted across the world by countries recovering from the Second World War and overcoming the legacy of colonialism. It became the language of reconstruction and of nation-building, reinforced by its rejection of the past. Its emphasis on technology suited this brave new world of industry, large-scale development, and new building types. Fast-forwarding to a century after its birth, Modernism itself has become the legacy. As buildings progressively become obsolete or reach the end of their design lives, there is an appreciation of the heritage value of these structures, both as designed items and as symbols of the spirit of the age in which they were built. Here, we look at five Modernist buildings from five regions going through adaptive reuse proposals. Where form once followed function, here, the function must follow the form.
Located approximately 300 kilometers north of the Arctic Circle, on the island of Andøya in northern Norway, The Whale by Dorte Mandrup is currently under construction along the coastline of Andenes. The small settlement is situated near Bleiksdjupa, a deep-sea canyon that brings marine life close to shore and has contributed to the region's role as a whale-watching destination. Recent construction images show the building emerging from the rocky shoreline, maintaining a low profile that follows the contours of the site. The surrounding context, including the existing lighthouse and residential structures, situates the project within an active coastal environment.
On March 12, the Chilean architect of Croatian descent, Smiljan Radić Clarke, was awarded the 2026 Pritzker Architecture Prize. The jury highlighted his "unorthodox approach to design," which "may initially appear unusual, unexpected, even rebellious; yet, far from producing alienation or estrangement, his anti-canonical stance feels fresh and unprecedented. It conveys the unmistakable sensation of encountering something new." This recognition will be celebrated with the annual Pritzker Architecture Prize Laureate Lecture and Panel Discussion, to be held in Mexico City at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), at the Faculty of Architecture's Teatro Estefanía Chávez, on May 12, 2026.
Even the most distracted passerby is captured by the monumental presence of this structure in Valencia’s established Benimaclet neighborhood. Before it, any attempt at rational apprehension quickly dissolves. Its constructive logic seems to escape comprehension as the space unfolds through tensions and deviations, where nothing is immediately given. Between masses of concrete and the insurgent force of vegetation, an almost choreographic play of planes, angles, and rotations emerges. In the vertigo of this encounter, one realizes that the building was not made to be understood, but to be experienced.
