2023 was a blockbuster year for the completion of cultural and museum projects. Now, 2024 is proving to be no exception with a full roster of residential buildings, infrastructure projects, and parks slated to open. Keep your eyes peeled for these 14 projects online and in the pages of The Architect’s Newspaper in the coming months. And in case you missed it during the holidays, we gathered the top new stories, reviews, controversies, interiors, and more in our 2023 Year in Review.

LACMA
Peter Zumthor
Los Angeles

At $750 million the new LACMA building, scheduled for a 2024 completion, is poised to be the cultural building opening of the year. Ground broke on the Peter Zumthor–designed expansion, which will house the museum’s permanent collection, in 2020 after a slew of construction delays. Whether the art is installed and visitors can populate the galleries by then remains to be seen. Critics have already had a go denouncing the building and its curved concrete form.

Populus
Studio Gang
Denver, Colorado

In Denver a Studio Gang project slated to open this year promises to make good on a big claim: “the first carbon-positive hotel in the U.S.” The 13-story building’s form and ornamentation references Colorado’s aspen trees, Populus tremuloides. The building will house “micro” apartments, in addition to 265 hotel rooms and event space. It’s located close to Denver’s Civic Center Park, a historic park in the city that Studio Gang was recently tapped to work on.

Notre Dame Cathedral
Philippe Villeneuve and Rémi Fromont
Paris

When a fire tore through the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris in 2019 it destroyed the 12th-century Gothic building’s famous spire and rendered the building unsafe for occupation. Since the blaze restorers have carefully reconstructed the cathedral’s roof and its scorched interiors. The architecture community was excited by an international competition that sought to redesign the spire, in the end it was decided to realize the replacement spire as it was originally built.

Paris had hoped the restored cathedral would open in time for the 2024 Summer Olympics. It’s sounding like work won’t be completed in time for the games and it will instead conclude before 2024 ends: December 8.

Boston’s Green Line Extension (GLX)
Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority
Boston, Massachusetts

Boston’s public transit system is in a sorry state. Delays are frequent, and even derailments can’t be ruled out as potential scenarios commuting to-and-from work. By the end of 2024, officials at the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) hope to give riders reason to celebrate when its gleaming new Green Line Extension (GLX) finally opens, and existing speed restrictions are lifted.

GLX is designed to connect Lechmere Station in East Cambridge to Union Square in Somerville and Medford’s College Avenue. GLX service was supposed to start in 2021, but its opening got pushed back to November 2023, and then service was restricted again thanks to technical difficulties. Maybe 2024 will be Boston’s lucky year.

Philadelphia Center for Dance
Varenhorst Architects
Philadelphia

In 2022, the Philadelphia Ballet unveiled plans for a major overhaul to its home base at the Louise Reed Center for Dance on North Broad Street. The expansion by Philadelphia-based Varenhorst Architects is slated to open this year. This project, dubbed the Philadelphia Center for Dance, will add 43,000 square feet of new space, proffering a new 5-story, 58,000-square-foot facility on the North Broad Corridor.

Museu de Arte de São Paulo expansion
Julio Neves and METRO Arquitetos Associados
São Paulo

Museu de Arte de São Paulo, a Brutalist classic that opened in 1968 by Lina Bo Bardi, is set for the most significant physical expansion in its history. Due to physical constraints, only one percent of the museum’s contents are on display. Thus, MASP has over 11,000 works including paintings, sculptures, objects, photographs, videos, and clothing from Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas in storage. The expansion will add 66 percent capacity, allowing curators to exhibit much more work. The addition is being carried out by Julio Neves and METRO Arquitetos Associados, owned by partners Martin Corullon and Gustavo Cedroni.

One Domino Square
Selldorf Architects
Brooklyn

PAU saw its Domino Sugar Factory open last September on the Williamsburg, Brooklyn waterfront; and two new towers by Selldorf Architects are slated to follow this year. Clad in custom porcelain tile from Spain, One Domino Square is a collaboration between Selldforf Architects and Two Trees Management Company. According to Annabelle Selldorf, “The towers will be clad in unique iridescent, pearl-like Porcelain surface, creating an effect on the facade that is perceived differently as the color of the sky changes.” Looking ahead, REX is set to follow PAU and Selldorf Architects with two forthcoming towers on the Domino Sugar Factory site, according to its website.

Palmer Museum of Art
Allied Works
University Park, Pennsylvania

At Penn State University, the Palmer Museum of Art will debut its new home for its vast collection of American art. Beyond galleries the building makes room for education and events for the university and larger community. Designed by Allied Works, the structure is conceived as a series of pavilions, each of which are clad in a locally sourced stone.

Storm King Art Center
heneghan peng architects, WXY architecture + urban design, Reed Hilderbrand, Gustafson Porter + Bowman
New Windsor, New York

In 2022 Storm King Art Center, a sculpture park nestled among forest and meadow in New York’s Hudson Valley, announced its 500-acre site will have a $45 million refresh. Officials from the open-air museum said an increase in visitors in recent years prompted the need for a refurbishment and expansion to its facilities. The project is slated to wrap up this year.

At the core of the endeavor are new visitor pavilions, an art conservation and fabrication facility, in addition to improved parking. The redesign is headed by Dublin-based heneghan peng architects, WXY architecture + urban design, Reed Hilderbrand and London-based Gustafson Porter + Bowman.

Museum of Modern Art
Thomas Phifer and Partners
Warsaw, Poland

In 2007, a design by Swiss architect Christian Kerez was chosen from 109 submissions for a new Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, Poland. The municipality terminated its contract with Kerez however in 2012, and instead chose to work with the New York office of Thomas Phifer and Partners.

The Thomas Phifer and Partners–designed building will reach four stories and provide 213,000 square feet of space for exhibitions, lectures, workshops, conservation and restoration workshops, a cinema, an auditorium, a cafe, and a museum shop; set to open in 2024.

Destination Crenshaw
Perkins+Will, Studio MLA
Los Angeles

Upon completion, Destination Crenshaw will be the largest Black public art project in the U.S. The reparative justice art project, designed by Studio-MLA and Perkins+Will, will commission over 100 works by Black artists with ties to Los Angeles. In addition to space for art, Destination Crenshaw has a strong nature component. It proffers more than 800 trees in the neighborhood and develops over 30,000 square feet of sustainable landscaping. The project is slated to open this February.

Mattel Adventure Park
EPIC Resort Destinations
Glendale, Arizona

A life-size Barbie Beach House™ and a Hot Wheels–themed roller coaster are coming to Glendale, Arizona. In the wake of Greta Gerwig’s landslide cinematic success starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, reviewed by AN, Mattel’s Adventure Park ™ is slated to open this year, marking Arizona’s first fully themed indoor/outdoor amusement park. The 9-acre park is envisioned to provide family friendly fun 365 days a year. Part beach, part museum, Adventure Park will have on display the full spectrum of Mattel’s expansive brand portfolio of toys that will bring out the kid in all of us. 

Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County
Frederick Fisher & Partners
Los Angeles

A renovation and expansion to The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles (NHMLAC) is readying for its public debut this year. The NHM Commons was anticipated to open in fall 2023, but was delayed by the pandemic, supply chain issues, and rising costs.

The renovation headed by Frederick Fisher & Partners and Studio-MLA will add 75,000 square feet to the museum. The project is one component of a larger endeavor to reimagine Exposition Park and the La Brea Tar Pits, a NHMLAC research site and museum nearby where fossils have been unearthed.

The Frick renovation
Selldorf Architects
New York

A 1914, Beaux Art mansion on Manhattan’s Upper East Side is poised to open this year as the home of The Frick Collection. The art institution housed within the former residence has been on AN’s radar since renovation plans were unveiled in 2018. Selldorf Architects is leading the design alongside executive architects Beyer Blinder Belle.

Its completion this year will realize much-needed expanded exhibition space, improved accessibility, a new auditorium, a cafe, and infrastructure upgrades.