What Will Museums Look Like in the Future?

Well we don’t have a time machine but we can gain some insight from some ground breaking museum architecture recently completed and some plans for museums set to be completed within the next 15 years.

Here are five of our favourite futuristic museum designs:

1: Louvre Abu Dhabi by Jean Nouvel opened November 2017
The most striking element of this immense multi-million dollar museum comprising of 55 individual buildings is the magnificent dome. Jean Nouvel describes it as, “A double dome 180 meters in diameter, offering horizontal, perfectly radiating geometry, a randomly perforated woven material, providing shade punctuated by bursts of sun. The dome gleams in the Abu Dhabi sunshine. At night, this protected landscape is an oasis of light under a starry dome.”

2: Museum of Contemporary Art, Africa opened September 2017
A redesigned grain silo that had fallen into disuse in 1990 is now the world’s largest museum dedicated to African contemporary art. The interior atrium serves as a cathedral-like space at the centre of the museum.

3: M+ Museum in Hong Kong opening 2019
Designed by Swiss architecture firm Herzog & de Meuron. Scheduled to open in 2019. Designed as an upside-down “T,” the horizontal plane of the building contains an underlying railway line while its horizontal tower features an LED facade that dramatically displays artists’ moving image works across the harbour.

4: The Main Museum Downtown Los Angeles, due to open in 2020
Designed by the locally-based firm Tom Wiscombe architecture. When complete, The Main Museum will take up about 100,000 square feet of space in three Old Bank District buildings (the Farmers & Merchants Bank, the Hellman Building, and the Bankhouse Garage) and feature a very cool rooftop garden.

5: Lucas Museum of Narrative Art due to open 2020
A $300M art museum to open on the lakefront of Chicago in 2020. The museum will be constructed from stacked stone blocks cut according to exact algorithms in order to fit perfectly together, forming a smooth, flowing facade that curves organically. On the roof floats a metal halo connected to the base by three pillars; this observation deck, which will be free and open to the public, will offer spectacular, 360-degree views of Chicago and Lake Michigan.

We are experts in cutting-edge museum interpretation…