The best design and architecture of 2025

"In a case of contents outshining the container, the V&A's national museum of everything takes the public up close and personal to a gallimaufry of precious things, from porcelain to poison darts, textiles to tiaras. Elegantly shoehorned into the gargantuan hangar that was originally the broadcasting centre for the 2012 Olympics, it's an Amazon warehouse crammed with global treasures, setting visitors off on an odyssey of curated transgression through an immersive cabinet of curiosities."

"Subtly abstracting Islamic architectural precepts for the current age, a new social and cultural centre for Houston's Ismaili community, which will also be enjoyed by the wider public, evokes an experiential serenity that recalls the laconic simplicity of minimalist art. Beautifully built and characterised by an inviting sense of openness, it's a renewal rather than a reproduction, says its architect Farshid Moussavi; a nuanced distillation of geometric and spatial possibilities set within a luxuriant garden landscape."

"As the Pompidou Centre bids adieu for a five-year long renovation, its final architecture show was devoted to the work of Austrian architect Hans Hollein, a postmodernist provocateur who navigated the currents of the avant garde for five decades while designing everything from exquisite jewellery shops to pneumatic structures. Infamously, he proposed reducing architecture to a series of pills contrived to conjure spatial and sensorial experiences without going to the bother of actually constructing a building."

The V&A transformed a gargantuan 2012 Olympics broadcasting hangar into a densely curated national museum of everything, juxtaposing porcelain, poison darts, textiles and tiaras within an immersive cabinet of curiosities. Diller Scofidio + Renfro adapted the space into an Amazon-warehouse-like storehouse that sets visitors on an odyssey of curated transgression. A new Ismaili social and cultural centre in Houston subtly abstracts Islamic architectural precepts to evoke experiential serenity and minimalist simplicity, prioritising openness and a nuanced geometric distillation within a luxuriant garden. The Pompidou concluded with a Hans Hollein retrospective highlighting his postmodern provocations, including a proposal to reduce architecture to sensorial 'pills'.

Read at www.theguardian.com