With a suite of cultural launches planned for the year ahead, here’s Travel Tomorrow’s selection for new museums not to miss.
1. V&A East Storehouse, London, United Kingdom
Storehouse is a new kind of museum experience. It gives visitors a chance to see behind the scenes of a working museum, explore why and how objects get collected by museums, how they are cared for, and uncover the stories they tell about us and our world.
Welcome to V&A East Storehouse – the new home of the V&A’s collection @HereEast situated in @NoOrdinaryPark, east London. Doors open on 31 May 2025 – https://t.co/mGpdwtyMSQ #vameast #hackneywick📷 © Diller Scofidio + Renfro pic.twitter.com/l5kXAz838p
— V&A East (@vam_east) October 22, 2024
With room for 250,000 objects, 350,000 library books, and 1000 archives from the V&A’s collections, V&A East Storehouse promises to be a vast space dedicated to culture. 100 mini curated displays will give visitors a glimpse behind the scenes and an idea of how much V&A has to offer. From East London’s rich heritage of artistry, activism and resistance, to the V&A’s newest acquisitions by transgender and non-binary artists and cutting-edge scientific research on conserving fragile plastics and protecting cultural heritage: there will be something for everyone to enjoy. Thanks to the revolutionary Order an Object experience, visitors can book in advance to see any object on-site up close with experienced handling staff on hand to help them.
Scheduled opening date: 31 May 2025
2. Fenix Museum of Migration, Rotterdam, Netherlands
Fenix is the first museum in the world to tell stories of migration through art. Those include ” Stories of love and goodbyes, coming home and feeling at home, navigating identity or seeking happiness “, press materials say.
Global migration has been going on for thousands of years but the subject seems to be gaining evermore attention over the last years. Fenix aims to represent migration through different points of view, including art, photography and history. The museum’s location within Rotterdam’s harbour hasn’t been chosen randomly, since it has been a point of departure and one of arrival for centuries.
Scheduled opening date: 16 May 2025
3. DATALAND, Los Angeles, United States
DATALAND will unite pioneers in diverse fields including the arts, science, AI research, and cutting-edge technology under the artistic leadership of Refik Anadol Studio. With its flagship location launching in 2025 at The Grand LA, the Frank Gehry-designed development in Downtown Los Angeles, DATALAND will join the renowned visual and performing arts institutions in the city’s cultural and civic corridor.
AI has gained an important place in our society and DATALAND will therefore be the world’s first museum to be dedicated solely to AI arts. Founder Refik Anadol is a new media artist himself and his studio will be the brains behind the museum’s first exhibition, the Large Nature Model. According to Anadol, the museum will solely be using ethical AI, based on data collected with permission and using solely renewable energy.
Scheduled opening date: late 2025
4. Guggenheim, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
The building defines a new approach to the museum visitor experience and presents an innovative vision of contemporary art in the context of a desert landscape. Inspired by expansive industrial studio spaces, the museum design reflects the large scale at which many contemporary artists work and presents unconventional gallery layouts. The design also incorporates sustainable elements appropriate for the region, including natural cooling and ventilation of covered courtyards derived from the concept of traditional wind towers found throughout the region.
After Spain, Italy and the United States, the United Arab Emirates will be the fourth country in the world to welcome a Guggenheim museum. Following almost 20 years of building works, the museum designed by Frank Gehry is set to open later this year and visitors will be able to admire a collection of global modern and contemporary art, with artworks centred around West Asia, North Africa and South Asia. The Guggenheim will be located on Abu Dhabi’s Saadiyat Island, where the Louvre Abu Dhabi Art Museum opened its doors in 2017.
Scheduled opening date: late 2025
5. Almaty Museum of Arts, Almaty, Kazakhstan
Almaty Museum of Arts promises a dynamic program of exhibitions, commissions, and publications that will introduce international artists to Kazakhstan audiences, while also providing a platform to showcase, research and learn about Central Asian art. It will offer a range of educational programs for both children and adults, engaging the general public and the artistic community alike.
Kazakh entrepreneur, art collector and Almaty native Nurlan Smagulov is the founder of the Almaty Museum of Arts, which will become the first private contemporary art museum in Central Asia. His personal collection will be at the core of the museum, with over 700 works of modern Kazakh art along with international pieces collected over the past 30 years.
Scheduled opening date: Summer 2025
6. Naoshima New Museum of Art, Naoshima, Japan
The small island of Naoshima in Japan is already a haven for culture and art fans but this year, another gem of a museum will be opening its doors. Designed by Tadao Ando (who thereby has ten architectural works on his name on Naoshima), the minimal museum will house a collection of major works and commissioned works of artists from the Asian region including Japan.
As the new museum interconnects with the existing art facilities on the island, this constellation of venues will offer more integrated art encounters, and claims it will be ” deeply resonant with the surrounding nature and communities.” As the first museum to bear the name of Naoshima, it aims to further explore what it means to be a museum profoundly connected to the spirit of the local community, ” creating an even greater harmony between art, architecture, nature, and daily life on the island.”
Scheduled opening date: Spring 2025
7. Museum of West African Art, Benin City, Nigeria
With an inaugural exhibition celebrating West African arts and culture and the preservation of West African heritage, the Museum of West African Art immediately sets the tone for what is to come, highlighting its “ exceptional infrastructure and programmes for the preservation, display, research, learning and exchange in arts and culture from a world-class campus in the heart of the historic district of Benin City, Nigeria.”
Hailed as a “ catalyst for deepening connections between contemporary arts and culture and the rich cultural heritage of West Africa, and a centre of excellence creating opportunities for African and Diaspora artists and scholars,”. To do this, we provide the site will not just host an art-filled gallery but also a collection study area, an atrium, an auditorium, a lab, artist studios and much more. Several sacred objects from Benin City, once the kingdom of southern Nigeria’s Edo people, will also get a spot a the museum.
Scheduled opening date: May 2025
