London's National Gallery Expansion and Lina Ghotmeh's Mathaf Campus Project: This Week's Review

"This week's architectural news reflects a broad engagement with how institutions, practitioners, and cultural platforms are positioning themselves in relation to both legacy and long-term change. Across museums, galleries, and major cultural events, architecture is being framed as an evolving public infrastructure, one that must respond to expanding collections, shifting curatorial models, and growing expectations around accessibility, sustainability, and civic presence."

"Similar questions of continuity and adaptation emerge at Kistefos in Norway, where Christ & Gantenbein were selected to design a new museum building conceived as a zero-energy and zero-emissions project. Rather than foregrounding formal spectacle, the proposal aligns architectural restraint with long-term curatorial and environmental goals, reinforcing a model in which museums operate as durable cultural infrastructures embedded within landscape and heritage contexts."

Museums, galleries, and cultural events are repositioning architecture as public infrastructure that must address expanding collections, evolving curatorial models, and heightened demands for accessibility, sustainability, and civic engagement. Projects like the proposed Kistefos museum by Christ & Gantenbein emphasize zero-energy, zero-emissions performance and architectural restraint to create durable cultural infrastructure integrated with landscape and heritage. The appointment of Joaquim Moreno as Chief Curator of the 8th Lisbon Architecture Triennale signals commitment to long-term research, experimentation, and programmatic development. Professional recognitions and appointments are privileging site-specific practice, conservation, and critical research, reinforcing architecture's mediating role between historical context and contemporary needs.

Read at ArchDaily