Dali Museum Florida
So prolific an artist was Salvador Dalí that a proliferation of galleries exists to display his work — but when it comes to leading-edge architecture, none rivals the new museum on the waterfront in St Petersburg, Florida, which opened in January. The largest collection of the artist's works outside Europe is housed in a bizarre structure by the US-based global practice HOK, a hurricane-proof concrete box with a superb spiral staircase at its heart, out of which seems to grow a huge amorphous wraparound geodesic glazed structure. A surreal tribute.
British Airways flies to Tampa from London Gatwick.
Gardens by the Bay Singapore
The redevelopment of Singapore's waterfront area continues apace, with the opening of another sensational green space, the Gardens by the Bay.
Covering 101 hectares, this extension to the Botanic Gardens will contain heritage gardens reflecting Malay, Indian, Chinese and colonial horticulture, as well and spaces to demystify 'the love life of plants'.
But the most striking element will be two vast contemporary glass houses designed by Wilkinson Eyre, ostensibly inspired by Singapore's national flower, the orchid, though they look more like giant ribbed clam shells, with interiors by the UK landscape architects Grant Associates.
Unlike European tropical glasshouses, these will be cool houses (powered by solar photovoltaics), intended to counter Singapore's humid, low-lying equatorial climate. One will be home to a cloud forest and Mediterranean plants. The other will be filled with 'supertrees' up to 50m high, that will act as vertical gardens planted with climbers and ferns, and linked by a 135m aerial walkway, 21½m above ground.
BA flies to Singapore from London Heathrow.
Museum for African Art New York
Located at the top of Museum Mile on Fifth Avenue, with a plaza that faces Central Park, this new museum is part of a residential block. The gallery is made distinct by a façade of trapezoidal windows with bronze-painted aluminium mullions intended, says architect Robert Stern, 'to suggest woven patterns in an abstract way'. It's due to open this autumn.
BA flies to New York from London Heathrow.
The Hepworth Wakefield
Described by Tate director Sir Nicholas Serota as 'one of the most exciting and beautiful galleries in the United Kingdom,' the Hepworth will be one of the largest purpose-built galleries outside London. It will display 40 sculptures by Barbara Hepworth alongside works by her contemporaries Ben Nicholson, Paul Nash and Patrick Heron, as well as international artists such as Mondrian, Brancusi and Giacometti. Slated to open in May, this sublimely understated space has been designed by David Chipperfield.
Uniqa Vienna
A new insurance-company HQ might not normally be on a must-see list, but this is different. Set on the Praterstrasse, just across the Danube from Stephansplatz, this building is not only the work of Jean Nouvel — the architect of Lucerne's superb KKL concert hall — but it also contains an arrestingly contemporary 182-room hotel, the Sofitel Vienna Stephansdom. It's a glass-and-steel highrise (at least by Viennese standards) that is angular and curvaceous, and clad in 45,000 tiny LED blocks that create an almost psychedelic lightshow after dark.
BA flies to Vienna from London Heathrow.
New World Symphony Miami
Designed by Frank Gehry, this is the newest and most technologically advanced auditorium to have opened in the US. Compared to his Walt Disney Concert Hall in LA, the New World Symphony is an uncharacteristically subdued and rectilinear building, at least at first glance — the west façade and auditorium have his signature all over them. A fine new landmark for South Beach.
BA flies to Miami from London Heathrow.
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