Modernism: The Latest Architecture and News

Amid the transformation of Uzbekistan's cities, ARC Architects develops an architecture that seeks to connect past and present. Founded in 2017 by Bobir Klichev, the studio emerged from Bukhara's architectural community and remains closely connected to the country's cultural and climatic particularities. With offices in Tashkent and Bukhara, ARC combines minimalism and ethnic references to develop a contemporary language rooted in its context.

Rather than reproducing a traditional image of Uzbek architecture, the studio seeks to understand how this heritage can be reinterpreted today, an exercise that necessarily engages with the overlapping historical layers across the country. For centuries, cities such as Samarkand and Bukhara were important commercial and cultural centers of Central Asia. Their architecture developed around inner courtyards and narrow streets, forming urban fabrics in which buildings and collective spaces are inseparable.

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The courtyard at Rozzol Melara measures two hundred meters on each side, which makes it larger than any square in Trieste. Two L-shaped blocks of exposed concrete enclose it, one of them twice the height of the other, climbing from seven to fifteen stories as the ridge falls away toward the gulf four kilometers below. Concrete pylons spaced every fifteen meters carry the blocks down to a slope they never quite touch, opening porticoes deep enough to walk through, and above them the facades resolve into loggias at the scale of a single room. Seen from the coastal road, none of that is legible; one can only see a gray line drawn across the hills.

Inside the enclosure, the Istituto Autonomo Case Popolari of Trieste built the rest of a city. The 648 apartments account for less of the plan than the schools, the post office, the health center, the parish hall, the twenty-odd shops and the two-level garage, all reached through covered streets that run the length of the blocks and cross the court in a raised walkway, so that the route from a front door to a grocery or a classroom passes through collective space without ever going outdoors. Twenty-nine architects worked on it under the coordination of Carlo Celli, drawing on sociological studies commissioned before the project.

In modern architecture, the promenade architecturale stood out as an essential design strategy to realize the principles of functionality, aesthetics, and integration with the urban context. Iconic projects by Le Corbusier, such as Villa Savoye (1929), illustrate this concept by guiding the visitor along an upward path that culminates in the contemplation of the roof garden, an open space where the building dialogues harmoniously with nature. A century later, the concept continues to influence contemporary projects, exploring the relationship between movement and space across various architectural typologies such as houses, museums, libraries, and parks.

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Building a city from scratch is no easy task. It never has been, and it never will be. The very idea of creating something that would otherwise develop and grow gradually demands resources, organization, and, above all, labor. This was the case in 1958, when Brazil's Central Plateau became one of the largest construction sites of the 20th century for the building of Brasília. Tens of thousands of candangos (migrants coming predominantly from northeastern Brazil, many without prior technical training) arrived to build an entire capital in just over three years, under then-president Juscelino Kubitschek's motto of achieving "fifty years of progress in five." Oscar Niemeyer's architecture and Lúcio Costa's plan would not have been possible without the assumption that enough workers were available and willing to endure low wages and extremely harsh conditions to transform concrete and curves into a national symbol.

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When African countries gained independence from European colonial rule during the mid-twentieth century, nation-building involved more than establishing new governments and political institutions. Newly sovereign states also needed to establish a built identity that could distinguish them from their colonial past, and architecture became an important tool in this process. Across the continent, monumental civic buildings, universities, conference centers, and cultural institutions were commissioned to embody progress and national unity. Yet this created a fundamental contradiction: many of these buildings adopted modernist and Brutalist architectural languages that had originated in Europe, while some were even designed by architects from former colonial powers. The Maison du Peuple in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, provides a particularly revealing example of how an architectural language associated with Europe could be appropriated and transformed into an expression of postcolonial independence.

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In the heart of Ahmedabad's Navrangpura district in India sits the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Stadium. More than just a cricket ground, the stadium stands as one of India's earliest experiments in modernist public architecture. Built in the decades following the country's independence, the structure has not only become an engineering landmark, but also a major public space within Ahmedabad's urban fabric. Despite the building's architectural and historical significance, as well as its deep involvement in daily community life, it has suffered significant physical degradation as a result of decades of poor maintenance and lack of funding. That fragility is precisely why it has drawn international attention. In 2020, the World Monuments Fund (WMF) placed the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Stadium on its World Monuments Watch, a global list highlighting cultural heritage sites facing urgent preservation challenges.

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The Getty Foundation's Conserving Black Modernism initiative is a program dedicated to preserving and celebrating the architectural contributions of African American architects in the Modernist movement across the United States. It was launched in 2022 as part of the National Trust's African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund, the largest preservation campaign to support the longevity of African American sites. Established initially as a two-year initiative, it has since expanded to support 26 historic modern sites and is launching its fourth funding cycle this year. The grants are given to support conservation planning, professional training, and storytelling across a diverse array of building types in 17 states and D.C., including academic, spiritual, residential, civic, cultural, and commercial sites of historic importance.

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Since August 2025, debate has intensified in Dallas, United States, over the future of one of its modern landmarks: I.M. Pei & Partners' Dallas City Hall. As of today, the Dallas City Council will continue weighing whether to repair, sell, or demolish the 47-year-old building, following growing concerns over long-deferred maintenance and the need for major investment. In late October 2025, council members began public listening sessions and committee meetings to gather resident input. Preservationists and some council members urged a full study of repair options and historic landmarking, while others emphasized fiscal and operational concerns. Since then, the Dallas City Council has been looking for a new building to relocate to, without formally deciding on the demolition.

Supporters of preservation stress the building's civic and architectural significance, while those advocating for demolition point to high maintenance costs and the redevelopment potential of the centrally located site. A petition to "Save Dallas City Hall," calling on council members to halt demolition plans and commission a transparent renovation study, remains open for signatures. Meanwhile, the mayor has said he wants to review all the facts before taking a position on whether the city should relocate or invest in repairs. On the occasion of the 250th anniversary of the United States' Declaration of Independence, the World Monuments Fund included the building on the "Irreplaceable America" list, spotlighting urgent preservation needs. The case adds to the growing list of modernist icons worldwide facing uncertain futures, sparking broader cultural debates about civic heritage and public infrastructure.

Architecture this week looked as much to the past as to the future. Across museums, restored landmarks, and large-scale urban redevelopments, the featured stories explored how architecture is continually reinterpreted through new cultural, political, and urban lenses. From reconsidering the architectural legacy of post-independence West Africa to transforming former prisons into energy-neutral neighborhoods and restoring twentieth-century cultural landmarks, the projects demonstrate how existing buildings and histories remain active participants in contemporary discourse. Alongside these interventions, the announcement of the World Architecture Festival shortlist and renewed attention to global urban growth provide a broader picture of a profession negotiating heritage, environmental responsibility, and rapidly changing cities.

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In June 2026, the refurbished Teatro Mauri reopened its doors on Cerro Bellavista in Valparaíso, formerly Chile's main port. The building forms part of Latin America's modernist legacy and stands adjacent to La Sebastiana, one of the renowned residences of the poet Pablo Neruda. It was designed by architect Alfredo Vargas Stoller, author of other icons of modern architecture in Valparaíso, such as the Edificio Cooperativa Vitalicia and the Conjunto de Viviendas Vargas in Viña del Mar. Teatro Mauri opened in 1951 as a venue for performances and cinema. Following a fire in the early 1990s, it fell into disrepair, serving only sporadically as a venue for local parties and events. In 2015, it was purchased by the Sociedad Chilena de Autores e Intérpretes (SCD), which commissioned its restoration from architects Laura Garrido and Gregorio Garretón.

The Museum of Modern Art in New York inaugurated the exhibition Architects of Liberation: Modernism in Western Africa on July 5, 2026, on view through January 2, 2027. The exhibition examines African modern architecture from the late 1950s through the early 1980s in the context of political independence in the region. Works span seven countries: Benin, Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal, and Togo. The display is organised around anchor projects selected as "entry points" into categories such as cityscapes, education, and housing. It is curated by Martino Stierli, The Philip Johnson Chief Curator of Architecture and Design, and Ikem Stanley Okoye, guest curator and associate professor at the University of Delaware, with Mallory Cohen, curatorial associate in the Department of Architecture and Design.

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Aino and Alvar Aalto's Paimio Sanatorium is a recognized example of modern architecture for healing, representing a patient-centered approach to hygienism that treated the building itself as a medical instrument. Built between 1929 and 1933, it was designed as a nature-oriented tuberculosis sanatorium, later used as a hospital, and today operates as a tourist attraction. The property comprises the main building together with fourteen additional structures, granted protection in Finland in 1993 under the Finnish Building Protection Act. The complex was included on UNESCO's tentative list in 2004 and is part of the "Aalto Works" nomination, with a decision expected in July 2026. Snøhetta has developed a masterplan representing a new vision for the modernist complex, reimagining it as a destination combining hospitality, wellness, cultural spaces, and arenas for international dialogue.

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Between the 1950s and 1960s, two cities were built that would define the history of architecture and urbanism. Born of the same concept but separated by more than 14,000 kilometers, Brasília in Brazil and Chandigarh in India, steeped in modernist principles, were planned and built from scratch.

Emerging in a context of profound political and social transformations, where several countries sought to reshape their capitals as symbols of progress, both cities assumed a strategic role. Through their adopted architectural language, they reaffirmed ideological and identity narratives linked to state power.

These were cities created in the abstract, following a utopian vision. They were to be avant-garde cities, free from the deficiencies afflicting mid-20th-century urban centers, exemplifying aesthetic principles that would reflect progressive political ideologies and embrace new technologies—most notably the automobile.

However, this promise of the future ultimately generated significant challenges. These difficulties, of course, reflect the social and economic struggles of their respective countries, but they are also "seasoned" by a modernist vision that is highly contested today.

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When is a form still circular or rectangular? In twentieth-century modernism, this question was largely absent. Architecture was built on clarity, reduction, and formal purity. Influenced by architects such as Le Corbusier and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, modernist design established a visual order based on rational geometry, industrial materials, and the rejection of ornament. Circle and square, function and expression, were kept strictly apart—a logic that dictated the rigid, modular layouts of traditional bathrooms for decades.

Modern housing was one of the places where modernism made its boldest promise: that architecture could reshape not only the city, but the way people lived within it. As Argentine architectural historian Ramón Gutiérrez has argued, popular housing is "the great unresolved subject, one that usually does not appear in histories of architecture." In Latin America, this absence is significant. Across the 20th century, expanding cities turned housing into one of the clearest ways to imagine urban change, and modernism entered not only plans and drawings, but apartments, neighborhoods, streets, and domestic routines.

Yet once built, these projects entered cities shaped by politics, memory, inequality, and changing ways of occupation. Their meanings no longer belonged only to the original plan, but to the ways they were inhabited, altered, and transformed over time. What this history reveals is not adaptation, but friction: the moment when architecture stops being an ideal model and meets the city it cannot fully control.

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In the decades following independence, some of the most ambitious architectural experiments in the world did not emerge through museums, monuments, or government palaces. They emerged through universities. Across South Asia and Africa, newly formed nations turned campuses into testing grounds for entirely new ways of imagining collective life. These campuses functioned as more than educational institutions. They became territories where states tested how modernity might be organized, for citizens to gather, institutions to function, climate to shape architecture, and imported ideas to transform local realities.

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Observed annually on May 25, Africa Day commemorates the founding of the Organization of African Unity in 1963, now the African Union. Established during a period marked by independence movements across the continent, the day recognizes not only political solidarity but also the cultural, social, and intellectual histories that continue to shape African societies today. Within architecture and urbanism, these histories are reflected in evolving conversations around nation-building, heritage preservation, climate-responsive design, material innovation, and community-centered practice.

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Architecture is often presented as the visible expression of its time, its desires, its faith in progress, its idea of order. Yet this reading tends to flatten the conditions under which buildings are produced. It suggests that architecture follows history when, in many cases, it actively participates in it. Few periods make this more evident than the twentieth century, when architecture became deeply entangled with political programs, economic systems, and competing visions of how collective life should be organized.

What is commonly grouped under the label of Modernism is often described as a coherent project, defined by formal clarity, technological optimism, and a break with historical styles. But this apparent coherence dissolves when we look beyond its canonical centres. The same spatial principles (standardization, functional zoning, industrial production) were adopted in political and economic contexts that differed significantly in their structures and objectives. A static movement unfolded as a flexible system continuously reoriented according to the priorities of each regime. What appeared as a shared language was, in practice, a set of tools applied to distinct agendas.