RECORD’s Top Ten Projects of 2016
Zaha Hadid Architects
Antwerp, Belgium
One of the first completed projects from Zaha Hadid’s office since her untimely death at age 65 in March of this year, the new Port House on the sprawling docks of Antwerp, Belgium, is a dazzling, if distinctly eccentric, work. Though this nine-story headquarters building for the Antwerp Port Authority is not solely the work of Hadid, it displays her wit, sense of mischief, and knowledge of the history of heroic modernism, from Futurism and Russian Constructivism onward.
Photo © Hufton + Crow
National Museum of African American History and Culture
Freelon Adjaye Bond/Smith GroupJJR
Washington, D.C.
The opening of the National Museum of African American History and Culture on September 24, 2016, was a long time coming. It has been over a hundred years since such a monument was first proposed by black Civil War veterans and 13 years since President George W. Bush signed legislation to build it, following decades of lobbying. The highly anticipated museum finally came to fruition just in time for President Barack Obama to preside over the opening before leaving office.
Photo © Alan Karchmer
Herzog & de Meuron
Hamburg, Germany
Like a giant seafaring ship with rippling sails of glass instead of canvas and a brick base instead of a wood hull, the new Elbphilharmonie commands the harbor of Hamburg’s still-active port in northern Germany.
Photo © Iwan Baan
Bjarke Ingels Group
New York City
Within New York’s recent architectural renaissance, Via 57 West—appearing like a giant silver sailboat along the Hudson River on Manhattan’s far West Side—is an anomaly. The building, with its pyramidal shape and sweeping roof-cum-facade, is a radical departure from the apartment block typology.
Photo © Iwan Baan
Andlinger Center at Princeton University
Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects | Partners
Princeton, New Jersey
Says architect Billie Tsien of the new research and teaching facility devoted to sustainable energy and conservation at Princeton University: “We wanted to make it feel as if you were coming into a hidden garden.
Photo © Michael Moran
Switch House: Tate Modern Expansion
Herzog & de Meuron
London
Herzog & de Meuron’s extension to London’s Tate Modern completes a project that the architects outlined in 1995 when they won the competition to create an art museum out of a decommissioned power plant. And while the result is remarkably coherent, the new work is a sequel, not a repeat.
Photo © Iwan Baan
Spring Street Salt Shed and Manhattan Districts 1/2/5 Garage
Dattner Architects and WXY Architecture + Urban Design
New York City
A new sanitation garage is accompanied by a one-of-a-kind salt-storage shed—a poured-in-place concrete, 6,300-squarefoot structure worthy of Tadao Ando that draws the eye away from the larger building. Residents who once sued to block the sanitation-department facility now seem happy with the gentle giant. Don't miss our original video tour!
Photo © Albert Vercerka/ESTO
Toyo Ito & Associates
Taichung City, Taiwan
When it comes to structural daring, few architects can top the Tokyo-based designer and 2013 Pritzker laureate Toyo Ito. After 11 years and $135 million, his most ambitious work to date has finally opened in Taichung City.
Photo © Iwan Baan
Roy and Diana Vagelos Education Center at Columbia University Medical Center
Diller Scofidio + Renfro
New York City
The first thing that comes into view when approaching the new Roy and Diana Vagelos Education Center is the tower’s attention-grabbing south elevation. Its 14 stories of canted planes, transparent glass, and projecting boxes offer a striking counterpoint to both the sprawling medical complex—which includes Columbia’s teaching hospital, New York Presbyterian—and the surrounding low-scale but dense Washington Heights neighborhood.
Photo © Nic Lehoux
Visual Arts Building at the University of Iowa
Steven Holl Architects
Iowa City, Iowa
Perched atop a hill, Holl’s new 126,000-square-foot Visual Arts Building is more cube than Cubist. Originally intended to have only two levels, its boxy form developed—after more than 40 schemes—with the need to squeeze as much program as possible onto a constricted lot at the edge of campus that is bordered by private property. Concrete rather than steel, volumetric rather than planar, the new Visual Arts Building comprises bare-bones interiors within a beautifully crafted envelope of zinc-clad poured-in-place concrete walls.
Photo © Iwan Baan
In retrospect, 2016 was a rollercoaster year for architecture. The field hit some lows with the untimely loss of Zaha Hadid and the fallout of a contentious presidential election.
But the year also was one of milestones: the AIA awarded its highest honor to an African-American architect for the first time, while the Pritzker Prize and other awards honored architects committed to improving communities. RECORD also reached a landmark this year, celebrating its 125th anniversary this fall.
And, of course, 2016 brought an abundance of notable architecture—from a humble salt shed in New York, to a show-stopping concert hall in Hamburg. With the year nearly behind us, RECORD looks back on some of the best projects we published in our pages, in no particular order.
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