The jury and the public have had their say — feast your eyes on the winners of Architizer's 14th Annual A+Awards. Subscribe to our Awards Newsletter to receive future program updates.
Just as frames have traditionally existed to draw attention to a work of art without competing with it, exhibition spaces have traditionally been expected to do much the same. They frame not only the artwork, but also the experience of viewing it. Subtly, though.
Place these eight projects side by side, however, and the frame starts doing a lot more than framing. Exhibition spaces become classrooms, climate systems, public parks, archaeological shelters, and neighborhood gathering spaces. The exhibition is still at the heart of each project, but it no longer has the building to itself.
Crow Museum of Asian Art at the University of Texas at Dallas
By Morphosis Architects, Richardson, Texas
Popular Choice Winner, Museum, 14th Architizer A+Awards
In this museum, the gallery is only one part of a much larger campus. Instead of treating the museum as a standalone destination, the architects designed it as part of everyday university life. They organized the building as a sequence, not a box. The ground level stays open and public, with classrooms, a reading room and event space extending straight out from the plaza. The galleries sit on the second floor, held above by concrete V columns that create a shaded, open-air porch below. Together, these spaces encourage students and visitors to gather, study, attend events or simply pass through, even if they never enter the galleries.
Upstairs, Morphosis worked directly with the museum’s curator to design the galleries as “rooms within rooms,” which change in scale and light as visitors move through them. Rather than separating learning, research, socialization, and exhibition into different parts of the building, the design brings them together under one roof. Looking at art becomes one activity among many, instead of the museum’s only purpose.
AYDC Public Art Center
By Atelier Xi, Guiyang, China
Jury Winner, Architecture +Art, 14th Architizer A+Awards
This exhibition space dissolves into a public park. Instead of designing a single exhibition building, Atelier Xi divided the program into three structures: a library, a chapel and an outdoor stage. They are scattered across a landscaped park inspired by the karst caves of Guizhou Province. Concerts, performances, classes and exhibitions all take place here, making the park itself part of the cultural experience.
The architecture reinforces that idea in different ways. The Dali Stage has fiber optic lighting embedded beneath its floor. This allows the building to become part of the performance instead of simply framing it. Nearby, the Ginkgo Chapel rests on four stone forms shaped like ginkgo leaves. A narrow opening between them guides visitors toward an unobstructed view of the sky. By dispersing the program instead of consolidating it, Atelier Xi also allows the surrounding ginkgo forest to become part of the experience. Here, there is little distinction between visiting an exhibition and spending time in a public park.
The Yard, Dalian Cultural Center
By Neri&Hu Design and Research Office, Dalian, China
Popular Choice Winner, Architecture +Adaptive Reuse, 14th Architizer A+Awards
This exhibition space begins with a library instead of a ticket desk. Rather than designing a new cultural building, Neri&Hu transformed six former offices, warehouses, and worker dormitories into a single cultural destination. Corten steel ties the buildings together, while a courtyard inspired by the traditional Chinese garden replaces what was once a parking lot. At the entrance, a public library welcomes visitors before they reach any gallery, making access to knowledge part of the experience from the very beginning.
The project brings together galleries, retail, hospitality, offices, a cinema and a theater within the same site. The former dormitory now serves as office space, giving the existing buildings new life instead of replacing them. Rather than separating culture from everyday life, The Yard weaves them together. It becomes as much a neighborhood destination as it is an exhibition space, reconnecting the city with a part of its industrial past.
Zayed National Museum
By Foster + Partners, Abu Dhabi, UAE
Jury Winner, Museum, 14th Architizer A+Awards
Here, the exhibition space tells part of the story itself. Instead of leaving the museum’s message to the galleries, Foster + Partners designed the building to reflect the history, identity, and ambitions of the UAE. The five falcon-inspired wings and the faceted mound are not just architectural features. They were designed to communicate the country’s relationship with its landscape and culture, before visitors even step inside.
The building backs that story up with performance. The falcon-inspired wings also work as thermal chimneys, pulling hot air out while bringing daylight into the galleries. The mound protects the museum from the desert heat using ideas rooted in traditional architecture and updated with modern technology. Instead of treating the building as a neutral backdrop, Foster + Partners conceives of it as integral to the exhibition. Visitors start learning long before they reach the first artifact.
Midea Science Exhibition Center
By Atelier Ma_BIAD, Foshan, China
Popular Choice Winner, CCultural & Expo Centers, 14th Architizer A+Awards
Instead of treating the building as a container for innovation, Atelier Ma and BIAD made it part of the exhibition. Visitors begin experiencing the company’s ideas long before they reach the displays. The architects used daylight, water and movement through the building to communicate the same values that the exhibitions were designed to explain. In doing so, the exhibition space becomes another way of telling the company’s story.
The experience begins in a public sunken plaza inspired by the traditional Chinese courtyard. Inside, circulation wraps around a central atrium where daylight filters through a three-level water feature before reaching the exhibition floors. Automated sunshades respond to changing conditions throughout the day. Rather than relying on displays alone, the building demonstrates innovation through the way it performs and the way visitors move through it.
Yan Art Museum
By LUO studio, Zanhuang County, China
Popular Choice Winner, Gallery & Exhibition Spaces, 14th Architizer A+Awards
Instead of simply replacing what was lost, LUO Studio used this exhibition space to support the area’s recovery. Following the devastating floods in 2023, the museum transformed a damaged site into a place for exhibitions, artistic exchange and tourism. Located within the Zhanshiyan Scenic Area, which already attracts art teachers and students for plein air painting, the project gives that creative community a permanent place to gather while helping revive the local economy.
The architects allowed the landscape to shape the building rather than forcing the building onto it. Concrete walls follow the site’s irregular terrain while doubling as exhibition backdrops. Above them, a prefabricated timber roof echoes the layered ridges of the Taihang Mountains and is finished with locally sourced stone slate.
Marian Goodman Gallery
By studioMDA, New York, New York
Jury Winner, Gallery & Exhibition Spaces, 14th Architizer A+Awards
Most exhibition spaces separate the exhibit from its surroundings. Sp(r)int Studio does the opposite. Instead of leading visitors straight to the Viking ruins, the architects designed the journey to keep the archaeology connected to the landscape that buried and preserved it. Visitors cross the site before reaching the shelter, discovering the ruins gradually rather than all at once.
Inside, carefully positioned openings keep both the excavation and the surrounding volcanic landscape in view. As visitors move through the shelter, they constantly look between the two. Instead of treating the landscape as a backdrop, the project makes it part of the exhibition. The ruins explain the landscape, and the landscape explains the ruins.
The jury and the public have had their say — discover the remarkable winners of Architizer's 14th Annual A+Awards. Subscribe to our Awards Newsletter to receive future program updates.
