2025 will be remembered as a year of major global events – the Osaka Expo, the Africa World Cup, and the Venice Architecture Biennale. A year in which several major museums opened, many of them long-awaited, while preparations are already underway for a 2026 full of sports, with the Winter Olympics and the FIFA World Cup. But there are also construction sites finally reaching completion, such as the Sagrada Familia, extensive urban revitalizations across entire city blocks, and restorations of historic monuments, like those included in Macron’s plan for Paris or the works for the Jubilee in Rome.

In Giza, after twenty years of construction, the world’s largest museum dedicated to Egyptian civilization was inaugurated. In Paris, amidst the restoration of some of the finest museums in the world, Jean Nouvel signed the new Fondation Cartier, and the Grand Palais has regained its former glory. Rotterdam confirmed itself as the capital of contemporary architecture with projects like the Fenix Museum by Mad, Portlantis by MVRDV, and others, while Saudi Arabia inaugurated its first major national museum, designed by Norman Foster. New skyscrapers, stadiums, and infrastructures have risen all over the planet. We have covered all this and much more throughout the year.

With so many new developments, to make sense of a year now ready for the archives, we have selected 15 buildings not to forget — including skyscrapers, museums, theaters, airports, stations, and warehouses — from China to France, passing through Abu Dhabi, Giza, Rabat, and Osaka. Think of it as a Spotify Wrapped, but with architecture at the center.

On November 4 2025, with the Tutankhamun Gallery, phased opening is reaching completion for the museum overlooking the Pyramids of Giza, near Cairo, the largest in the world dedicated to a single civilization, making narrative gigantism its defining strategy. Read more 

Elasticity and transparency define the exhibition qualities of the Haussmannian building reimagined by Jean Nouvel, offering the city a new hub for its cultural life. Read more 

The museum, open on 16 May 2025, overlooks Wilhelmina Pier. The complex occupies the spaces of the old San Francisco warehouse built in the 1920s by Corneliis Nicolaas van Goor, first partially destroyed by wartime bombing and then by fire and "risen from the ashes" (like a phoenix). Read more

Five steel wings dominate the skyline, providing natural ventilation and light, while the underground galleries house artworks, all arranged around a central atrium. The Zayed National Museum by Foster + Partners tells the story of the United Arab Emirates and the country’s first president, Sheikh Zayed. A new chapter for the Saadiyat Cultural District, which, together with the Louvre Abu Dhabi and other projects under construction, is confirmed as one of the fastest-growing cultural hubs in the world.

While iconic stadiums close their doors in the West, Morocco’s new Prince Moulay Abdellah Stadium in Rabat emerges as a symbol of sports and urban revival. Designed by Populous for the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations, it accommodates up to 53,000 spectators, with panoramic stands and volumes that transform the audience’s experience into an engaging architectural spectacle.

270 Park Avenue: this is the name of the new JPMorgan Chase headquarters in New York, a 60-story skyscraper designed by Foster + Partners. It is also the largest fully electric tower in the Big Apple and can accommodate up to 10,000 employees. Its innovative structure lifts the main volume off the ground, creating new urban permeability between Park Avenue and Madison Avenue.

In Milan, the Palazzo delle Scintille is reborn into CityOval, CityLife’s giant event space. The CityLife building, constructed over 100 years ago as a sports arena, will become the largest event venue in central Milan. Read more 

The intervention consists of an underground concrete dome measuring 25 meters in diameter and 7.2 meters in height, accessed via a spiral staircase and illuminated by a central oculus 2.4 meters wide. Radical and silent, the space is designed to receive natural light and atmospheric elements—wind, rain, snow—in a continuous dialogue with time and landscape. Read more 

It is located in Shenzhen, China's "silicon valley," is called Eye of the Bay Area, and is over 100 thousand square meters. It is not just a store, but an urban landmark. Read more 

Rather than an object placed in the landscape, it is a system that integrates and transforms it. This intervention at Monte Sant'Angelo station demonstrates Naples' ongoing commitment to a model of public space that combines mobility and art. Read more 

The new terminal aims to set an example for timber construction combining sustainability, high quality spaces, and a new focus on the emotional experience. Read more 

Four years of work and a €500 million budget have brought one of Paris’s most imposing landmarks back to life: the Grand Palais, which reopens with exhibitions curated by the Centre Pompidou. Read more