The design of the museum began with a largely cleared site, yet without an operator. Yutaka Terasaki and Bao Mengxian report on how Kengo Kuma & Associates planned the building without needing a detailed briefing.
The new UCCA Clay Museum advances the millennia-old tradition of artisanal ceramics the Chinese metropolis Yixing is renowned for. An armour of red clay tile encloses the exhibition spaces and the open timber roof constructions above them – an expressive space for the presentation of modern ceramic art.
Lava architecten transformed an old mission building in Leuven into a place where circus arts, music, theatre, and dance coexist under one shared roof. Effective soundproofing is the precondition for the shared use of the facility.
The Glasshouse Theatre adds a fifth venue to the heritage-listed Queensland Performing Arts Centre. It can be flexibly used for concerts, operas, and dance and theatre performances. The glass facades of the deeply cantilevered foyer visualise the theatrical art of illusion on the exterior.
In their restoration of the Monastery of Santa María of Sijena, Pemán y Franco and Sebastián preserve traces of destruction, rebuilding, and decay spanning 800 years. Recently, they remodelled the east and north wings into an exhibition space for the convent’s valuable artworks.
At the Samuel H. Scripps Theater Center, Studio Gang turns the natural Hudson River landscape into a backdrop for Shakespeare.