Looking back through the past year, 2013 took us to Tokyo, where two young Portuguese architects, who currently reside in Kisho Kurokawa’s Nakagin Capsule Tower, report on their daily 21st-century life in one of the 20th century’s most iconic buildings.

In Istanbul, following the brutal dispersion and attacks on protesters occupying Gezi Park, last May, Domus published an account of the events by sociologist and professor Pelin Tan, with pictures by activist Eunseon Park. After few month, in October, with a vibrant and concerned manifesto, British critic and historian Kenneth Frampton presented an ethical wake-up call, not just for architects.

In Baku (Azerbaijan, the Heydar Aliyev Center designed by Zaha Hadid blurs the conventional differentiation between architectural object and urban landscape, building envelope and urban plaza, figure and ground, interior and exterior; while, in Copenhagen, the eight-pointed star-shaped building by Danish studio 3XN serves as regional headquarters for the United Nations, located on an artificial island in the harbour.

Along Tasmania's Derwent river, Australian architecture studio Room11 completed a colourful pedestrian path links two previously disconnected areas, while simultaneously harbouring a platform for events and artistic installations. In Toyokawa City, Japan, the single-family house designed by mA-style architects sought to create a uniformly lit space by playing with the way the daylight flows in and the light is directed.

Last April, in Seinäjoki, Finnish architecture studio JKMM Architects completed the new Seinäjoki library, located within the administrative and cultural centre of the city, which was designed by Alvar Aalto. In October, BIG with Kossmann.dejong, Rambøll, Freddy Madsen and KiBiSi have completed the Danish National Maritime Museum in Helsingør, just 50 km north of Copenhagen and 10 km from the world famous Louisiana Museum for Modern Art. Leaving the 60 year old dock walls untouched, the galleries are placed below ground and arranged in a continuous loop around the dry dock walls.

Lastly, Paz Arquitectura’s Corallo House in Guatemala City – inspired by modernism, but firmly tied to the environment in which it exists – is a lesson in dialogue with nature without surrendering to its forms or materials.

Below are our top ten architecture stories of the year.

Best of 2013 #architecture
— The Metabolist routine
— A report from Gezi Park
— Towards an Agonistic Architecture
— Zaha Hadid: Heydar Aliyev Center
— 3XN: UN City, Copenhagen
— Room 11: GASP! stage 1 and 2
— mA-style Architects: Light Wall House
— JKMM Architects: Seinäjoki library
— BIG: Danish National Maritime Museum
— Paz arquitectura: Corallo House