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Destination: Europe's New Icons
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The latest crop of buildings is giving the Guggenheim Bilbao a run for its money
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BY RAUL BARRENECHE
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Seductive curves on Munich’s BMW Welt; a slice of the Westside Center, the Swiss mall of the future; inside the Reina Sofia Palace of the Arts in Valencia, Spain.
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When it opened in 1997, Frank Gehry’s shimmery metallic museum transformed a down-at-heels industrial Spanish city into the top destination for architectural pilgrims. Almost overnight, the museum reversed the city’s fortunes by the sheer power of good design. It even spawned the term “Bilbao Effect.”
It’s hard to match the Guggenheim’s razzle-dazzle, but in recent years, extraordinary buildings by some of the world’s best architects have been popping up across Europe. They vary in size and style, from airports and wineries to hotels and car museums. But they all demonstrate great architecture’s uncanny ability to draw a crowd.
TERMINAL 5, HEATHROW AIRPORT
London, England
Twenty years in the making, the new British Airways terminal is a high-tech version of London’s grand old railway stations. Baggage woes at the 2008 opening threatened to overshadow the scintillating design (by Pritzker Prize–winning architect Lord Richard Rogers, with the engineering firm Arup). Now, 25 million relatively happy passengers a year marvel at the tree-like steel columns and soaring arches. Skylights and towering glass walls fill the interior with natural light. An extension will add 12 more aircraft gates in 2011. heathrowairport.com
NATIONAL OPERA HOUSE
Oslo, Norway
Jutting into Oslo’s frigid harbor like a stone-and-glass iceberg, the new home of Norway’s national ballet and opera companies blurs the boundaries between landscape and building, not to mention roofs, walls and floors. Snøhetta Architects’ crisp, angular structure has sweeping marble plazas that slope up and around glass-fronted lobbies to become rooftop terraces with views of the Oslo fjord. Inside, slatted walls of blond wood wrap the 1,350-seat main hall and 400-seat auditorium. It’s not just Oslo’s first purpose-built opera house; it’s the keystone of an ambitious redevelopment of the entire Bjørvika district. operaen.no
NEUES MUSEUM
Berlin, Germany
Of all the grand institutions on Berlin’s Museum Island, few suffered as much from World War II bombings and Communist–era neglect as the Neues Museum, built in 1855 by architect Friedrich August Stüler but left in shambles since 1945. Then, British architect David Chipperfield masterminded an 11-year rebuilding of the neoclassical structure: part renovation, part historic restoration and part built from scratch in Chipperfield’s sleek, minimalist style. After a brief preview in March to show off the glorious architectural mix of old and new, the museum finally reopened in October 2009, displaying its prehistoric and Egyptian collections. smb.museum
BMW WELT
Munich, Germany
On the edge of Munich’s Olympic Park is the epicenter of the Bavarian Motor Works empire: BMW’s “four-cylinder” headquarters (that is, four cylindrical towers joined together), plus a car museum, a factory and now BMW Welt (German for “BMW World”), a car-lover’s dream that combines a corporate theme park with an auto showroom. The Viennese firm Coop Himmelb(l)au designed the shimmering glass-and-steel structure, with its 92-foot-tall events hall shaped like a twisting hourglass, and a cloudlike steel roof the size of St. Mark’s Square in Venice floating above glass walls. Inside, restaurants and shops sell BMW–branded merchandise beside ramps lined with delivery-bound “Beamers.” The car-themed art exhibitions change regularly. bmwwelt.com
DOLDER GRAND
Zurich, Switzerland
It’s not often you get to spend the night in a building by a Pritzker Prize–winning architect. But you can at the Norman Foster–designed addition to the venerable Dolder Grand hotel in the hills above Lake Zurich. Foster, London’s master of sleek, high-tech style, added two curving glass-clad guestroom wings behind the original hotel, which he restored to its 19th-century grandeur. (United Designers, also of London, created the interiors.) Built into the hillside below the complex is a sprawling spa and a restaurant with a terrace, both with views of the Alps. thedoldergrand.com
WESTSIDE CENTER
Bern, Switzerland
Westside, on the outskirts of the Swiss capital, is not your typical mall. Besides shopping, its 1.5 million square feet hold a hotel, movie theaters, apartments for seniors, an aquatic park and a spa. And its strikingly angular forms are the work
of Daniel Libeskind, who helped design the tower planned at New York’s Ground Zero. The complex’s boxy wood-clad forms are sliced through with zigzagging windows and pierced by bright red waterslide tubes. Who says Switzerland is boring? westside.ch
NEW ACROPOLIS MUSEUM
Athens, Greece
Few architects have tiptoed through the minefield of history, culture and politics as deftly as New York– and Paris-based Bernard Tschumi, whose stunning New Acropolis Museum at the foot of the Parthenon opened in June 2009 after decades of planning. Crews even unearthed an archaeological site during construction, forcing a radical redesign so that the structural columns would straddle the ancient ruins. Tschumi’s tough but elegant concrete, steel and glass building displays some of Greece’s most treasured antiquities, with the Acropolis as backdrop. theacropolismuseum.gr
REINA SOFIA PALACE OF THE ARTS
Valencia, Spain
As surreal as a Dalí canvas, architect-engineer Santiago Calatrava’s City of Arts & Sciences in his hometown of Valencia dazzles with monumental twisting, transformable buildings set in Mediterranean gardens. The final piece of the bold 86-acre project is an opera house named for Spain’s current monarch. Looking both prehistoric and space age, with a dash of Sydney Opera House, the 760-foot-long building seats nearly 4,000 spectators in three theaters, and 2,000 more in an open-air performance space. It may resemble a giant UFO, but hand-laid broken mosaic tiles give it a human touch. lesarts.com
MARQUÉS DE RISCAL WINERY & HOTEL
Elciego, Spain
Frank Gehry’s confection, a visitor center and hotel at the storied Herederos del Marqués de Riscal winery, adds a jolt of color and whimsy to Spain’s arid Rioja region. (It’s the 81-year-old architect’s first hotel.) Twisting ribbons of silver- and blush-colored titanium swarm around sandstone blocks that shelter the reception area, a dozen guestrooms and a restaurant and wine bar; the remainder of the 43 rooms and a Caudalíe spa are housed in a more off-the-rack stone building reached by a glass-enclosed bridge. It’s no Guggenheim Bilbao, but it’s certainly another landmark in a country full of winning architecture. starwoodhotels.com
NOTE: Information may have changed since publication. Please confirm key details before planning your trip.
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Published: Nov/Dec 2009 Issue
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Photos: Duccio Malagamba; Neue Brünnen AG; Tato Baeza/Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía
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