When Mexico City hosted the Olympics in 1968, it was the first time the Games had been awarded to a Latin American country as well as the first time for a Spanish-speaking nation to host them. This made the games a good opportunity to project Mexico and its culture internationally, thus prompting the government to constitute an organizing committee with prominent local talent. They appointed Pedro Ramírez Vázquez as its president, a Mexican architect who held significant influence over the state's mid-century building program. His approach was explicit: architecture as a synthesis of international modernist technique with Pre-Columbian references and local material culture. Under his direction, the committee would oversee the construction and adaptation of venues distributed across the southern districts of Mexico City, nearly all designed and built by local architects, engineers, and technicians.
This week's selection of architecture news and projects invites a rethinking of the social, cultural, and environmental role of design across diverse scales and geographies. From community-led efforts to preserve modern heritage, such as the campaigns surrounding the Îlot 8 housing complex in France and a renewed photographic attention toward Croatia's Split 3 district, to broader reflections on architecture's agency in the face of climate change and social transformation, many of the featured works question how architecture adapts over time and how it engages with collective life. This week's compilation also highlights architects expanding their practice beyond buildings through furniture, lighting, and object design, while three projects explore immersive relationships between landscape, climate, and observation in remote or environmentally sensitive contexts, from Arctic Norway to the oasis environments of the United Arab Emirates and the desert landscapes of Saudi Arabia.
Modernism in architecture was perhaps the first truly global building design philosophy. Established at the beginning of the twentieth century, its early proponents were heavyweights from Europe, such as Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius, and Mies van der Rohe. In 1923, Le Corbusier published his seminal written work, usually translated into English as Towards a New Architecture. Newness, and a rejection of history, was one of the central tenets of modernism. This manifested itself in the use of new materials such as steel and concrete, which gave rise to an unprecedented freedom of formal expression.
By the middle of the twentieth century, Modernism was adopted across the world by countries recovering from the Second World War and overcoming the legacy of colonialism. It became the language of reconstruction and of nation-building, reinforced by its rejection of the past. Its emphasis on technology suited this brave new world of industry, large-scale development, and new building types. Fast-forwarding to a century after its birth, Modernism itself has become the legacy. As buildings progressively become obsolete or reach the end of their design lives, there is an appreciation of the heritage value of these structures, both as designed items and as symbols of the spirit of the age in which they were built. Here, we look at five Modernist buildings from five regions going through adaptive reuse proposals. Where form once followed function, here, the function must follow the form.
"The story of architecture is not wrong," argued Lesley Lokko in her introduction to the Venice Architecture Biennale 2023, "but it is incomplete." For most of the 20th century, architectural history spoke in one tongue: a singular, dominant narrative centered on a handful of movements, names, and cities, whose reach and influence appeared universal precisely because alternative voices were rendered inaudible. Design movements, however, rarely traveled intact across borders. They were frequently absorbed, resisted, reinterpreted, and transformed depending on geography, politics, economy, climate, and available materials. What arrived in one place as doctrine became, somewhere else, something entirely different.
This month, ArchDaily explores 20th Century Design in Flux: A Global Reinterpretation of Architectural History, a topic that traces the century's design languages not as a single canon but as a constellation of evolving, intersecting, and continually reinvented trajectories. The theme challenges the assumption that regional and non-Western architectures were merely derivative — positioning them instead as sites of active reinterpretation, where global ideas were filtered through local materials, climates, labor, and cultural practices to produce something entirely distinct.
In late 2024, an event was held in the grounds of the recently refurbished colonial-era Palais de Lomé in the capital of Togo. Students from the architecture university of Lomé were attending the first Lomé Architecture Encounters (RAL #1), curated by the transdisciplinary Studio NEiDA, and which involved lectures, film screenings, workshops, and building visits. A parallel exhibition displayed the country's most significant architecture through history. The purpose of the event was to explore the architectural heritage of Togo, and it would be the start of a journey that crosses borders, asking questions about the conservation of modern heritage. Unlike colonial buildings like the Palais de Lomé itself, which are more appreciated and readily restored, neglected modern buildings like the Hôtel de la Paix require creative, bottom-up approaches to return them to their former vitality.
Establishing thermal comfort once demanded a far more deliberate and calibrated architectural intelligence—an interplay of orientation, massing, material behavior, ventilation potential, shading, and the ways daylight and surfaces absorb and release heat. This was not simply a matter of taste, but of necessity. When many of Hong Kong's post-war modernist buildings were constructed in the late 1960s and 1970s, forming a substantial portion of the city's public housing and broader residential stock, air-conditioning was not yet a ubiquitous, default service. Cooling, where present at all, was limited and unevenly distributed; comfort had to be negotiated through passive means, through section, façade depth, operable openings, and climatic detailing. It was only later, particularly through the 1970s and 1980s, as air-conditioning became increasingly standardized across the region, that mechanical cooling began to displace this earlier matrix of architectural decision-making.
Did air conditioning negatively affect architectural space, particularly in Hong Kong and the nearby region? The more precise claim is that widespread reliance on AC has profoundly rearranged the incentive structure of building design.
In January 2026, the World Monuments Fund/Knoll Modernism Prize was awarded to Australian firm Architectus for their conservation of the Africa Hall in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The award recognizes that Modernist buildings, once seen as a vanguard of architecture, are falling into disrepair and are underappreciated by the public. The situation in Africa is typical of this global sentiment, and this was the first time a building on the continent was graced with this award. The prize also spotlights Ethiopia's rich Modernist inventory, which marks its continental role in the mid and late twentieth century.
Image credit: Architecture of Coal in Modern Europe project, University College Dublin
We are excited to invite submissions for DARK MATTER: Revisiting the Architecture of Coal in Post-War Europe, an in-person conference hosted by the ACME (Architecture of Coal in Modern Europe) project (ERC Advanced Grant, 2024–2030), taking place at the Irish Architectural Archive, Dublin on 5+6 November 2026.
When Hong Kong's architectural story is told, it is often reduced to a handful of icons. Many people most readily name I.M. Pei—Pritzker Prize laureate and architect of the Bank of China Tower in Central (1990), as well as global works such as the Le Grand Louvre in Paris and the Miho Museum in Shiga. Looking elsewhere, one also encounters a long lineage of British and international architects whose imprints have shaped the city's institutional skyline: from Ron Phillips' civic works—most notably the former Murray Building (1969), now The Murray Hotel, and Hong Kong City Hall (1962)—to Norman Foster's infrastructural and corporate monuments, including the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC) Tower (1986) and Hong Kong International Airport (1998), and, more recently, Zaha Hadid Architects' The Henderson (2024).
Yet within the same period as Pei and Foster, local architects were also producing buildings of enduring significance—works that carried the legacies of Bauhaus, but translated them into a language distinctly calibrated to Hong Kong's climate, density, and civic life. These projects may not always read as commercially prominent icons, yet they often register a sharper sense of social responsibility and public agenda. Among the most important figures in this lineage is the late architect Tao Ho, whose work and public role formed a quieter—but no less foundational—strand in Hong Kong's modern architectural heritage.
From 7 March to 31 May 2026, Brazilian architect Eduardo Longo's Casa Bola will open to the public for the first time. The futuristic ball-shaped house in São Paulo will host one of the two parts of the ABERTO5 exhibition, alongside a project on Faria Lima, a major avenue at the heart of the city featuring landmarks by architects such as Ruy Ohtake and Isay Weinfeld. Founded in 2022, ABERTO is an exhibition platform that promotes the encounter of architecture, art, and design in Brazil and internationally. After its first international exhibition at Maison La Roche in Paris, ABERTO returns to São Paulo for its fifth edition, presenting over 60 art and design pieces by 50 Brazilian and international artists. According to architect and curator Fernando Serapião, Casa Bola represents one of the most radical works of Brazilian architecture, challenging conventional domestic space and reflecting Eduardo Longo's experimental vision for housing.
The Southbank Centre is a cultural complex in London built between 1963 and 1968 and widely regarded as a representative example of British Brutalism. Today, the site hosts a wide range of events, including visual arts, theatre, dance, classical and contemporary music, literature, poetry, and debate. The building was designed by a team from the Architects' Department of the London County Council, led by architect Norman Engleback. It became a controversial example of modern architecture following its opening in October 1967, when engineers voted Queen Elizabeth Hall "the supreme ugly" in a poll of new buildings, and the Daily Mail referred to it as "Britain's ugliest building." Fifty-nine years later, on February 10, 2026, the complex was granted Grade II listed status by the UK government's Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), following a 35-year campaign advocating for its protection as modern architectural heritage.
Perched above the cliffs of Crimea, the Druzhba Thermal Sanatorium appears less as a building than as a landed spacecraft. Its circular forms, suspended decks, and spiraling ramps evoke a scene from Andrei Tarkovsky's Solaris (1972), where architecture and psychology merge into a single landscape. Built between 1978 and 1985 by Igor Vasilevsky, the complex was conceived as a thermal resort for workers of the oil industry, part of the Soviet Union's extensive network of sanatoria dedicated to health and recreation.
Beyond its function as a place of recovery, Druzhba, meaning "friendship", embodied a broader political and aesthetic ambition. It sought to merge technological prowess with the restorative ideals of socialist modernity, translating collective well-being into concrete form. Rising from a steep coastal slope overlooking the Black Sea, its massive structure defies gravity, supported by a central concrete core from which radial wings extend like the blades of an enormous gear. Seen from a distance, it feels simultaneously mechanical and organic, a hybrid of infrastructure and landscape.
Situated along the historic Silk Road in Central Asia, Tashkent is a city with a long history spanning thousands of years. Its historic architecture is known for its courtyards, domes, and blue ceramics, typical of its Timurid heritage. The capital of Uzbekistan today, it was absorbed into the Russian Empire in the 19th century, before becoming a Soviet republic. While part of the Soviet Union, the city became an example of modernization, celebrating socialist achievements in Asia. A devastating earthquake in 1966 accelerated this modernization as the city was reconstructed, leading to many of the modernist monuments for which Tashkent is known today.
"We know we are not born to die," often said Brazilian architect Paulo Mendes da Rocha. "We are born to continue." In architecture, this idea of continuity lies at the heart of heritage, not as a static inheritance, but as something that endures, transforms, and is constantly reinterpreted. Yet what continues, and what is allowed to disappear, is never neutral. Decisions about preservation are shaped by power, memory, and value, raising a fundamental question for contemporary practice: who defines what is worth carrying forward, and for whom?
Launched in September 2024, the Rediscovering Modernism in Africa series joined a growing worldwide interest in this topic. Previously underrepresented in architectural discussions, the work of architects and researchers on the continent and abroad has continued to tell the story of these high-quality modern works of architecture. These buildings represent designers striving to create locally suited architecture using global concepts and technologies, coinciding with huge political changes as most African countries gained their independence.
World Monuments Fund (WMF) is an independent organization dedicated to safeguarding significant places that enrich people's lives and foster mutual understanding across cultures and communities. Since 2008, the World Monuments Fund/Knoll Modernism Prize has been a biennial award recognizing outstanding achievements in the conservation of buildings emblematic of the modernist architectural movement. The prize honors individuals and organizations that revitalize modern built heritage through innovative and sensitive architectural interventions.
On January 22, 2026, WMF and Knoll announced the Australia-based architecture firm Architectus as the recipient of the 2026 World Monuments Fund/Knoll Modernism Prize for its conservation of the United Nations' Historic Africa Hall in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The jury recognized the project for reestablishing a significant work of African modernism as an active venue for diplomacy and cultural exchange. In addition to the main prize, the jury also awarded Paul Rudolph's Umbrella House in Sarasota, Florida, United States, with the Stewardship Award for Modernist Homes.
Once a Najdi settlement defined by mudbrick walls and courtyard houses, Riyadh has undergone one of the most radical urban transformations of the 20th and 21st centuries. The discovery of oil reserves, the consolidation of political power, and the rapid expansion of infrastructure reshaped the city from a regional capital into a sprawling metropolis almost within a single generation. As a result, Riyadh's urban fabric is marked by discontinuities, fragments of vernacular architecture coexist with mid-century institutional modernism, and a rapidly evolving contemporary skyline.
In recent decades, this layered condition has been further intensified by large-scale development strategies and cultural investment programs that position architecture as a tool for redefining national identity. International practices have played a decisive role in shaping key institutions, infrastructures, and landmarks, while local studios increasingly contribute projects that reinterpret climate, materiality, and social space within a contemporary framework.
Every architectural project is the result of deliberate choices. Beyond form and function, buildings embody technical, political, and cultural decisions that shape their relationship with both their surroundings and the people who inhabit them. ArchDaily’s AD Narratives series explores these processes by bringing together accounts that trace projects from initial conception to built realization. In parallel, the AD Classics series turns to works of historical significance, presenting not only the stories behind these buildings but also technical drawings that allow for a deeper, more informed reading of their architecture.
