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2026 will be a year of architectural showstoppers. Major projects, from corporate headquarters to sports stadiums and museums, will wrap construction and open to the public in 2026, bringing bold, sometimes audacious buildings to cities around the world. Here are nine buildings opening in 2026 to watch for.
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Image: Vincenzo Lombardo/Getty Images]
Arena Milano—opening in FebruaryMilanDavid Chipperfield Architects
Built partly to host ice hockey games during the 2026 Winter Olympics, Arena Milano is a 16,000-seat multipurpose arena that’s expected to become a new center for sports and concerts in Milan. Pritzker Prize-winning David Chipperfield Architects’ design, done in conjunction with Arup, is the standout venue for this edition of the Olympics. An inverted triple-decker layer cake that calls to mind Frank Lloyd Wright’s Guggenheim Museum in New York, the building is intended to evoke the elliptical form of the city’s former Roman amphitheater.
Guests attend the LACMA First Look Reception on June 26, 2025 in Los Angeles.
Image: Stefanie Keenan/Getty Images for LACMA
Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s David Geffen Galleries—opening in AprilLos AngelesPeter Zumthor
Inherently controversial, architect Peter Zumthor’s Wilshire Boulevard-spanning blob-like replacement of Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s (LACMA’s) main gallery buildings has been more than a decade in the making, with no shortage of hand-wringing about its shape, cost, and necessity. The concrete building’s ink blot form spreads across a single elevated floor, marking a hard departure from the museum’s mid-century campus design. One early review—ahead of a slightly odd three-day preview in June 2025 of what was essentially an empty building—found the execution of Zumthor’s vision flawed, but also calls the building a refreshingly risk-taking piece of architecture.
Hudson Valley Shakespeare Theater—opening in JuneGarrison, New YorkStudio Gang
The Samuel H. Scripps Theater Center is the first permanent, purpose-built stage for Hudson Valley Shakespeare, an open air theater company that has been performing under a glorified tent since 1987. Tucked under a swoopy timber tortoise shell of a canopy, the new theater was designed by Studio Gang to shield performers and audience members from the elements and the sun’s glare during dusk performances. It’s also a picture frame for the site’s epic view, opening fully behind the stage to provide audiences a panorama of the ridgelines of the Hudson Valley.
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Image: Edward C. Robison III/courtesy of Crystal Bridges Museum of Art
Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art Expansion—opening in JuneBentonville, ArkansasSafdie Architects
The 2011 opening of the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Northwest Arkansas was a bold investment by Walmart heir Alice L. Walton in broadening access to world class art beyond the typical metropolitan centers of the U.S. Now, 15 years later, Safdie Architects has returned to broaden the museum’s reach even further. The project expands the museum’s space by 50% while extending the aesthetics of the original design. Future visitors may be unable to tell where the expansion begins, or that there ever even was one.
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Image: Snøhetta/Theodore Roosevelt Library
Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library—opening in JulyMedora, North DakotaSnøhetta
Set in the wide openness of North Dakota where Theodore Roosevelt ranched for years before becoming the 26th president of the United States, the new Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library is a stunning earthship of rammed earth, mass timber, and a nearly camouflaged roofline. Designed by Snøhetta to physically blend into the landscape, the building is meant to reflect Roosevelt’s environmental stewardship and deep connection to the landscape of the North Dakota Badlands.
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Image: Al Bello/Getty Images
Buffalo Bills’ Highmark Stadium—opening in summer 2026Orchard Park, New YorkPopulous
The Buffalo Bills NFL team is moving on from its previous home of more than 50 years into a brand new 60,000-seat stadium. Despite—or possibly because of—Buffalo’s snowy winters, the stadium was designed to be an open bowl, welcoming the elements onto the field and all but the uppermost stadium seats. The stadium’s designer, sports architecture specialists Populous, calls it “one of the most intimidating home field environments in the league.”
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Image: Mario Tama/Getty Images
Lucas Museum of Narrative Art—opening in SeptemberLos AngelesMAD
One of the most anticipated new cultural institutions in recent years, George Lucas’s $1 billion museum is hotly awaited both for its extensive art collection and its far-out architecture. Designed by MAD Architects with an integrated landscape by Studio-MLA, the spaceship-shaped building is a curvaceous modern behemoth in Los Angeles history-laden Exposition Park. Though his firm has built dozens of shapely museums and opera houses across China, this will be lead architect Ma Yansong’s first major cultural institution in the U.S.
Atlassian Central—opening in NovemberSydneySHoP Architects
When software giant Atlassian’s new headquarters building opens in 2026, this 39-story skyscraper will be the world’s tallest hybrid timber building. Made up primarily of six mass timber four-level buildings-within-the-building, the tower encases everything in a criss-crossing steel exoskeleton wrapped in operable glass windows. Designed by SHoP Architects, the tower is also a hybrid at ground level, preserving a historic train shed and converting part of it into the tower’s new lobby.
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Image: Sadak Souici/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock
Guggenheim Abu Dhabi—opening TBDAbu Dhabi, United Arab EmiratesGehry Partners
Possibly the last major project to be designed by architect Frank Gehry before his death in December 2025, the long-awaited Guggenheim Abu Dhabi is expected to open to the public sometime in 2026, 20 years after it was first announced. Appearing to be a jumble of funnels, tubes, and cubes, the museum fully embodies Gehry’s signature style. Its government backers hope the museum also taps into the energy of previous Gehry projects, like its counterpart museum in Bilbao, Spain. One official recently told a local newspaper the museum aspired to be “a civic space.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Nate Berg is a staff writer at Fast Company, where he writes about design, architecture, urban development, and industrial design. He has written for publications including The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The Atlantic, Wired, The Guardian, Dwell, Wallpaper, and Curbed.