Architecture fans are in for a treat in 2026, as the year brings with it a suite of landmark openings and announcements. Here’s Travel Tomorrow’s month-by-month guide.
January
The winning design for the new Louvre should be revealed at the start of the New Year, picked from an October shortlist that has narrowed 100 entries to just five finalists. The project was launched by President Macron in 2025, a year that saw the Parisian icon straining under huge visitor numbers and suffering a humiliating heist. The brief is to revamp the eastern wing and give the Mona Lisa a dedicated new home in spaces under the Cour Carrée and the side gardens. The “Louvre demain” vision will also address much-criticised weaknesses in technical systems and infrastructure.
February
Finally, due to open, commentators hope, at some time in early 2026, is the late Frank Gehry-designed Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, after an extraordinary 20-year lead-in which prevented the architect, who died at the end of 2025, from seeing the full realisation. Resembling a pile of traffic cones, the structure has been described as Gehry at his most playful.
March
Studio KO’s Centre for Contemporary Arts, in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, will become Central Asia’s first contemporary art and research institution when it opens in March 2026, transforming the industrial into the cultural with a transformation of an old tram depot and power plant that has retained imperial elements. The first exhibition is themed around Hikmah, or “wisdom” in Uzbek.
April
Foster + Partners’ winning plans for the UK’s national memorial to Queen Elizabeth II will be coming to fruition this spring in London’s oldest royal gardens, St James’s Park. The design features a natural stone path that offers a contemplative journey accompanied by the Queen’s voice via audio installations, as well as new sculptures of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip and a “Unity Bridge.”
May
In Taiwan, history is about to be made as the six-year construction of the world’s longest single-mast, asymmetric cable-stayed bridge is completed on 12 May 2026, spanning 920 metres and connecting the east and west banks of the Tamsui River estuary for the first time. Designed by Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA), the Danjiang Bridge is intended to “make a conspicuous landmark against the backdrop of Tamsui’s famous sunset.”
June
One of the best-known and longest building projects in the world, ground broke on Antoni Gaudí’s Sagrada Família in Barcelona nearly 150 years ago, in 1882. The church will inaugurate the Tower of Jesus, Gaudí’s tallest and most symbolic structure, on 10 June, the 100th anniversary of the architect’s death. It will take the basilica to 172.5 metres in height, making it the tallest building in the city. The moment is being billed as the Sagrada Familia’s “completion”; however, work on decorative details will continue.
July
Stretching across June and into July, Barcelona’s Gaudí centennial coincides with the city’s World Congress of Architects, showcasing architectural innovation and promising a buzzing atmosphere of fervent pride in Catalan design.
August
Slated to open by summer 2026, Denmark’s new Water Culture House is intended as a new “gathering point” in Copenhagen Harbor, according to architect Vilhelm Lauritzen. Both indoor and outdoor water activities will flow from a structure that appears to float on glass and offers “state-of-the-art training and meeting facilities,” creating a work that “respects and complements Copenhagen’s unique harbor environment.”
September
Commissioned by Star Wars legend George Lucas and designed by MAD’s Ma Yansong, the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art is scheduled to open in Los Angeles during the autumn. Its white, floating, sinuous form conjures a spaceship or dream cloud, and gives the entertainment capital of the world a five-floor, 800m2 exhibition space dedicated to visual storytelling, from comic strips to cinema to fine art.
October
Ghent, Belgium, is set to re-open its Design Museum in October 2026, the culmination of over 30 years’ planning. The expansion breathes new life into the site, with a sustainable approach and a bridge between the museum’s three existing buildings by Carmody Groarke, TRANS architectuur/stedenbouw and RE-ST architectenvennootschap that aligns 18th-century elements with future-proofed spaces that provide up to 210 m² extra per floor.
October is also the month of the European Prize for Urban Public Space, again in Barcelona, World Capital of Architecture for 2026.
November
As the nights draw in (and the Paris Pompidou closes for renovations), the Belgian capital will mark the opening of KANAL – Centre Pompidou, Bruxelles, by noAarchitecten, EM2N and Sergison Bates architects. Another project that reenvisages old industrial infrastructure, KANAL has taken André Citroën’svast 1924 showroom and repair shop and made it Europe’s largest multidisciplinary cultural space.
December
Trade show Architect@Work Germany, Frankfurt, takes place from 2 to 3 December 2026, while the 2026 European Public Space Prize opens registration for works for this prize on 10 December.
Architecture buffs will also be hoping that other new buildings that should have been completed long before will finally be open. That includes Snøhetta’s new Grand Opera House in Shanghai, one of the city’s major new landmarks and part of China’s 13th Five-Year Plan, which aims to boost Shanghai’s cultural and global influence.
