The 11 Most Anticipated Buildings of 2020
Looking back at the year that was, 2019 had several difficult, if not defining, moments in the world of architecture. In May, the inimitable architect I.M. Pei died at the age of 102. Argentine starchitect César Pelli, a decade younger than Pei, passed away two months later. And then, of course, Notre-Dame Cathedral was within minutes of completely burning a millennium of history to the ground.
Yet architecture is nothing if not a forward-thinking enterprise. A century ago, this meant building shockingly tall skyscrapers such as the Empire State Building. Today, while we are still searching for the sky’s upper limits with our buildings, new focus has narrowed on designing eco-friendly structures, and more affordable housing in major urban enclaves. Echoing Winston Churchill's philosophy when he stated, “We shape our buildings, and afterwards, our buildings shape us,” these are the trends that will carry us through the 21st century, leading our society into a more just future.
Ultimately, however, architecture is a medium meant to be experienced not through two-dimensional writing, but in everyday life. It’s through the craning of one's neck to take in the magnificence of a skyscraper such as New York’s Central Park Tower; or the almost indescribable individuality of Zaha Hadid Architects’ tower that features a gaping hole in its center; or the striking beauty that can be produced when modern and ancient architecture, as with MAD Architects' kindergarten in China, are juxtaposed next to each other. So, in 2020 and beyond, we at Architectural Digest urge you to go out and experience these spectacular structures that will be completed this year. Oftentimes, we can’t imagine the necessity of architecture until the project is completed and the landscape is altered for the better. We believe these 11 buildings will meet that high bar.