While leaving behind all celebrations after 2021, we have compiled 10 hotly-anticipated buildings we look forward to seeing being opened in 2022. 

OMA's Taipei Performing Arts Center in Taiwan, Studio Gang's Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts in MacArthur Park, Arkansas, SANAA's Sydney Modern Project, Zaha Hadid Architects' Bee'ah Headquarters in the United Arab Emirates make our list for the most anticipated buildings of 2022. 

Scroll down on our list to see the much-anticipated buildings of 2022 (in no particular order):

Image © Herzog & de Meuron

Royal College of Art – new Battersea campus, London by Herzog & de Meuron (to be opened in 11 January 2022) 

The Royal College of Art (RCA), the world’s leading institution for art and design education, is expected to open its new Battersea South campus on 11 January 2022. Designed by Swiss studio Herzog & de Meuron, the state-of-the-art 16,000-square-metre building will be a new home for innovation and design, embodying the RCA’s academic vision to interweave art and design with STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths). 

Occupying the urban block to the south of the existing RCA Battersea buildings within the Battersea Creative Quarter, the complex is conceived as two conjoined buildings that comprise studios, workshops, labs and research centres. 

While flexibility makes up the core design principle of the project, the intense use of textured brickwork and large, north facing clerestory lights of the workshop and studio building introduce a unique yet contextual profile to Battersea Bridge Road, on the upper levels, the metal fins of the Research Building create a distinct skyline identity for the campus.

Read more about Royal College of Art – new Battersea campus. 

Image © OMA by Chris Stowers

Taipei Performing Arts Center, Taiwan by OMA (set to be opened in summer 2022)

The new Taipei Performing Arts Center by OMA is one of hotly-anticipated buildings to be opened in 2022, as announced in December this year with new photographs, the building will open to the public in summer 2022. 

OMA-designed Taipei Performing Arts Center, described as "Asia’s most important cultural development in 2022", has a distinctive and powerful form that branches out with its three-lifted theaters from the central cube: multiform theatre, grand theatre and proscenium theater, Globe Playhouse.

Floating above the bustle of Taipei’s famous Shilin Night Market, the building catches the eyes from afar with a sphere-formed auditorium. The arts center aims to challenge the standardised model of contemporary theaters and embraces "inclusivity, reflecting the liveliness and open-mindedness of Taipei and its people."

Read more about Taipei Performing Arts Center.

Image courtesy of Mathew & Ghosh Architects

Museum of Art and Photography (MAP) Bangalore, India by Mathew & Ghosh Architects (expected to be opened in late spring 2022)

In Bangalore, Mathew & Ghosh Architects will open the Museum of Art and Photography in late spring 2022. The new five-storey building will house more than 18,000 works donated by philanthropist and collector Abhishek Poddar who is also the founder of the Museum of Art and Photography. 

Developed over the past three decades, the collection will include paintings, photography, textiles, graphic art, illustrations, sculptures and installations. 

The program of the museum contains a multimedia gallery, a conservation lab, a research lab, a lobby, auditorium, a sculpture court, retails and four galleries. Opening up the gourd level for public use, the museum features a patterned façade, with central large openings.

Read more about Museum of Art and Photography Bangalore.

Image © Timothy Hursley

Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts (AMFA) Little Rock, Arkansas, USA by Studio Gang (expected to be opened Autumn 2022)

Next year we will see the opening of the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts designed by US firm Studio Gang architects and landscape architect SCAPE, located within Little Rock’s historic MacArthur Park.

Set to be opened in Autumn 2022, the 133,000-square-foot (12,356-square-metre) building will offer exhibitions (both drawn from its collection and temporary shows), classes of all levels at its Windgate Art School, and performances in its flexible theatre spaces. The project combines new construction and the renewal of existing structures built between 1937 and 2000, and includes nearly 13 acres of public landscape.

This year, Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts released new photographs from the museum and the building's signature roof, made of a flowing, folded concrete is complete at the site. 

Read more about Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts.

Image © Morphosis

Orange County Museum of Art, Costa Mesa, California, USA by Morphosis (to be opened 8 October 2022)

Pritzker Prize-winner Thom Mayne's firm Morphosis will open a permanent home for Orange County Museum of Art at Segerstrom Center for the Arts which is set to open to the public on 8 October 2022. 

Led by Thom Mayne and Brandon Welling, the state-of-the-art 53,000 square foot (4,924-square-metre) building makes double the size of the museum’s former location. The building, made of folded, rotated and angular volumes, will be complemented with the gallery spaces are mezzanine and street-front galleries that will house temporary and permanent collection exhibitions.

While it offers a spacious roof terrace, equivalent in size to 70 percent of the building’s footprint, can be configured for installations, programs and events. Hovering over the soaring lobby atrium is a dynamic architectural space for performance and education. In front of the building, a grand public stairs curve toward the entrance, linking the museum to Segerstrom Center for the Arts. Morphosis a light-coloured façade façade with undulating bands of glazed terracotta paneling, creating a distinctive character for the new building.

Read more about Orange County Museum of Art.

Image courtesy of MICAS

Malta International Contemporary Art Space (MICAS) by Ipostudio Architetti (to be opened in 2022) 

Malta's first museum for international contemporary art will be opened in Floriana in 2022. 

Named Malta International Contemporary Art Space (MICAS), the museum is designed by Florence-based architecture studio Ipostudio Architetti and MICAS will be a new home of major international exhibitions and collections to Malta for the first time as well as showcasing the work of contemporary Maltese artists. 

Located in Floriana district, the dynamic new art space is being constructed on the site of the Old Ospizio historical fortifications, which went major restoration to accommodate a new program. Although the building appears as a single-story building from outside, it enlarged inside with mezzanine floors, the building is made of a vaulted walls and steel structure.  

Read more about Malta International Contemporary Art Space.

Image by Kazuyo Sejima + Ryue Nishizawa / SANAA © Art Gallery of New South Wales, 2021

Sydney Modern Project, Art Gallery of NewSouth Wales, Sydney by SANAA (to be opened in late 2022)

Next year, Japanese Pritzker Prize-winning architects SANAA will open a major Sydney Modern expansion project which is currently under construction in Sydney. The new museum is set to be opened in late 2022.

Called Sydney Modern Project, the $344 million (AUD) will transforms one of Australia’s flagship art museums, revitalizing its much-loved late-19th-century neo-classical building, and create a new standalone building as well as a public art garden next to the existing Gallery. The program will include learning studios, a special studio for multimedia works and a rooftop art terrace, overlooking Sydney Harbour in the city. 

SANAA's new building is light, transparent and open to its surroundings, responding to the site’s topography with a series of pavilions that cascade towards Sydney Harbour with spectacular views.

Read more about Sydney Modern Project.

Image courtesy The Factory

The Factory, Manchester, UK by OMA (expected to be opened in December 2022)

OMA will open a world-class cultural space in the heart of Manchester, named The Factory. Expected to be opened in December 2022, the 7,000-capacity building with 2,000-set auditorium will contain ultra-flexible spaces, allowing large-scale artistic works of invention and ambition that is not made anywhere else in the world. The 13,000-square-metre building is OMA's first major public building in the UK. The design is led by OMA Partner Ellen van Loon as the lead architect.

Situated in Allied London’s new St. John’s neighbourhood, formerly home to Granada TV and next to the Science and Industry Museum, The Factory will be a permanent home for the world-famous Manchester International Festival (MIF) commissioning and presenting a year-round programme of extraordinary, ground-breaking and interdisciplinary work by leading artists from across the world. 

Read more about The Factory.

Image © MVRDV

Almere Floriade 2022 by MVRDV (expected to be opened in 2022)

Next year, we will see the opening of a 600,000-square-metre city extension designed by MVRDV for Almere Floriade 2022, the world's largest horticultural expo, in Almere opening from 14 April to 9 October 2022 in the Netherlands. 

Construction on the masterplan is already underway since 2016, MVRDV proposed a super green extension to the city centre to show how the city itself can create "a symbiotic world of people, plants and animals."

Once complete, Almere Floriade will form the largest portion of new developments, proposing 60.000 new homes. The masterplan, led by MVRDV co-founder Winy Maas, is divided into seven zones: leisure, education innovation, relax, environment, world show stage, green engine and green business. 

Visitors will be able to stay in a jasmine hotel, swim in a lily pond and dine in a rosary. The city will offer homes in orchards, offices with planted interiors and bamboo parks.

Read more about Almere Floriade 2022. 

Image © Luke Hayes 

Bee'ah Headquarters in the United Arab Emirates by Zaha Hadid Architects (expected to be completed in 2022)

Zaha Hadid Architects will open a new headquarters of Bee’ah, the Middle East’s leading fully integrated environmental and waste management company in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates. 

Expected to be opened in 2022, the 7,000-square-metre Bee’ah Headquarters is located on a 90,000 square meters site adjacent to the Bee’ah Waste Management Centre. Taking cues from an array of dunes within its desert landscape, Zaha Hadid Architects created  the two central dunes for the Headquarters building. Presenting a fluid geometry, these dunes are intersected and connected via a courtyard, forming an ‘oasis’ inside and enhancing natural ventilation and maximising indirect sunlight to the spaces within.

Bee’ah commissioned Zaha Hadid Architects to build its new geadquarters, following the 2013 architectural competition. 

Read more about the Bee'ah Headquarters.