Museum architecture was built for showing off. Spectacular projects that exhibit themselves as much as the objects they house.

Inspired by a desert rose: Jean Nouvel’s National Museum of Qatar is an almost otherworldly composition. Photographer: Iwan Baan

Making an exhibition of themselves: new museum projects | News

Inspired by a desert rose: Jean Nouvel’s National Museum of Qatar is an almost otherworldly composition. Photographer: Iwan Baan

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Iconic architecture can be found across every building type, but perhaps no more so than in the field of museum design. While museums might not be showy for the sake of it, architects still feel they can imbue the best of these buildings with a sense of civic grandeur.

Although simple in form, Kengo Kuma and Associates' Odunpazari Modern Museum is an arresting presence, emphasising its location within a terraced, hilly urban area. Odunpazari photos above: top, bottom © NAARO; middle © Batuhan Keskiner

Making an exhibition of themselves: new museum projects | News

Although simple in form, Kengo Kuma and Associates' Odunpazari Modern Museum is an arresting presence, emphasising its location within a terraced, hilly urban area. Odunpazari photos above: top, bottom © NAARO; middle © Batuhan Keskiner

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In Turkey, the recently completed Odunpazari Modern Museum by Kengo Kuma and Associates consists of a number of obliquely stacked blocks, tumbling down the gentle slopes of the old Ottoman town of Eskişehir. Inside, the interlocking, top-lit galleries with pale wooden floors are rendered in white plaster while the outside of the museum is covered with large timber slats, referring to the town's ancient timber market.

David Chipperfield Architects’ James Simon Gallery is a standalone museum, but also a connecting link within Berlin’s renowned cultural quarter, Museum Island. Photographer: © Simon Menges

Making an exhibition of themselves: new museum projects | News

David Chipperfield Architects’ James Simon Gallery is a standalone museum, but also a connecting link within Berlin’s renowned cultural quarter, Museum Island. Photographer: © Simon Menges

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A more austere design, David Chipperfield Architects’ James Simon Gallery in Berlin is more a connector than a stand-alone project. Designed to connect a number of museums on the city’s world-famous Museum Island as well as contain stand-alone galleries and an auditorium, the building’s colonnades integrate the project within its context, while its pale, reconstituted stone facade mark it out as a contemporary addition. The interior – meticulously fashioned from in-situ concrete – provides generous circulation spaces for visitors with a calm and contemplative atmosphere.

Although completely abstract in its design, the National Museum of Qatar by Jean Nouvel is deeply rooted in its context. Photographer: Iwan Baan

Making an exhibition of themselves: new museum projects | News

Although completely abstract in its design, the National Museum of Qatar by Jean Nouvel is deeply rooted in its context. Photographer: Iwan Baan

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An altogether more flamboyant design is Jean Nouvel’s National Museum of Qatar located on the Doha waterfront. Inspired by a desert rose, a mineral foundation sometime found in shallow saline pools, the museum is an almost otherworldly composition of large, pale disks surrounding the restored former royal palace. The inside space, sheltered from the intense light and heat by the overhanging elements, defined by their various intersections, is arranged to tell the history of Qatar.

The exterior of the latest Bjarke Ingels Group-designed museum, The Twist, is clad in aluminium, providing a contrast with the forested slopes around it. Photographer: Laurian Ghinitoiu

Making an exhibition of themselves: new museum projects | News

The exterior of the latest Bjarke Ingels Group-designed museum, The Twist, is clad in aluminium, providing a contrast with the forested slopes around it. Photographer: Laurian Ghinitoiu

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But iconic museums don’t need to have a large footprint. In Norway, Bjarke Ingels Group recently completed ‘The Twist’, a bridge across a river that contains exhibition spaces. Connecting two sides of an outdoor sculpture park, the museum consists of a deceivingly simple, rectangular prism that is twisted 90 degrees as it crosses over the river. Visitors have a chance to see the river and the rest of the sculpture park from a new vantage point, while curators can display smaller, more fragile works of art within.

© Architonic

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