Sheraton Huzhou Hot Spring
Resort, China.

Build it and they will come. Or will they? Belinda Jackson rounds up the best newcomers on the architecture scene.

Could you visit Paris without seeing the Eiffel Tower? Or
miss the Blue Mosque when in Istanbul? The Tower Bridge is a London
essential and Cairo’s pyramids are possibly the oldest tourist site on
the map.

But tell friends you’re going to Oslo to see the new design
by Renzo Piano and chances are you’ll be tarred with a try-hard hipster
tag. “Architecture is the great public art,” says Eoghan Lewis,
architect and founder of Sydney Architecture Walk, in defence of
architectural tourism.

While not buying into the tallest-fattest-most-brightly-coloured
debate (“Do people really travel to see the new tall?”), he readily
admits to admiring Burj Khalifa, but describes Sydney’s Opera House as
“the most important 20th-century architectural moment”, matched only by
Antoni Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia basilica, in Barcelona.

The Cardboard Cathedral, New Zealand.

However, if you were so inclined, the battle for the tallest,
longest and shiniest building has just two serious contestants: the UAE
and China, with Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, at 829 metres, currently the
tallest building in the world. Pitch that beside Australia’s loftiest
offering, the Gold Coast’s Q1, and we come out looking positively puny
at just 322 metres high.

Architecture aficionados have their 2013-14 diaries full,
with a smorgasbord of beautiful little offerings from Britain and plenty
of Zaha Hadid curves in Asia.

Off the list is the tediously square new George W. Bush presidential
centre. And while we’d love to jet to Lima for sheer wackiness, its
cliff-hanging hotel is, unsurprisingly, still at the planning permission
stage, while Shanghai’s Songjiang Hotel, where two floors are
underwater, won’t open till 2015.

Back home in Australia, now is the time for quiet, beautiful,
subtle achievers. Read on for a baker’s dozen of great new
architectural statements going up around the world.

ASIA

Here’s a statistic that will probably be outdated by the time we go
to print: nine of the 20 tallest buildings currently in construction
across the world are in China. But just because they’re tall doesn’t
make them fabulous: they have to be beautiful, too.

At heart, many travellers are mountain goats who need to
climb to the top for the birds-eye view of a new city. So take a look at
the new Shanghai Tower, which erupts from Pudong, one big paddy field
until a couple of decades ago.

he stats are impressive: the futuristic
skyscraper designed by American super-firm Gensler, was “topped out” in
early August at 632 metres, making it China’s tallest building; well
under Burj Khalifa. It is expected to be overtaken in the sky race even
before its completion by the ambitious Sky City, in Hunan, which aims to
scrape past the Burj by nine metres. Is it just me, or does this smack
of playground politics? Would it make you plan a trip to Hunan to see a
pointy tower that won’t fit in your camera lens?

Still big but less pointy, the new Sheraton Huzhou Hot Spring
Resort, also near Shanghai, is dominated by what’s unscientifically
been dubbed a “doughnut”. Perhaps “glowing horseshoe” is a kinder term
to describe Beijing-based MAD architects’ work: the ring is covered in a
metal skin covered with LED lights, which erupts 100 metres high from a
lake. The resort opened this year to the tune of about $1.5 billion and
should win dinner parties as the ultimate Shanghai weekender.

The Iranian-born, British-based architectural powerhouse Zaha Hadid
has been one seriously busy woman, with the new Dongaemun history and
culture park opening in Seoul next year. With her signature organic
curves, Hadid’s “urban oasis” is in the centre of old downtown Seoul and
includes a design museum and traditional Korean gardens. Detractors say
Hadid hasn’t tried hard enough to keep the old city but her admirers
won’t be disappointed (ddp.seoul.go.kr/eng/).

As an aside, while she’s not everyone’s cup of tea, Hadid’s
work definitely is admired by a group of Chinese builders, who have
pirated her Beijing Wangjing SoHo complex, in Chongqing. The copy may
even be completed before the original is finished, in 2014.

For more organic forms and materials, head to Kontum City in
Middle Vietnam for a cup of coffee at the waterside cafe in Kon Tum
Indochine Hotel. Designed by Vo Trong Nghia architects, the cafe’s roof
is upheld by 15 gigantic bamboo columns inspired by Vietnamese fishing
baskets. The cafe is on the shortlist for an award at this month’s World
Architecture Festival at the Marina Bay Sands in Singapore (indochinehotel.vn).

Den Bla Planet, Denmark.

SCANDINAVIA
For most, the drawcard of Copenhagen’s Den Bla Planet (The
Blue Planet) won’t be the architecture, it’ll be the 20,000 marine
animals wriggling around on display at this new aquarium, designed by
Danish architects 3XN. The largest aquarium in Northern Europe, Den Bla
Planet holds seven million litres of water inside, is encircled by a
reflection pool outside, and the building’s form is inspired by a
whirlpool, a visual treat from the air when you fly in to nearby
Copenhagen Airport. Australian aquarium architecture specialists
Crossley Architects, who spent almost four years working on the project,
name the Amazon display as the best in show (denblaaplanet.dk). The aquarium has just won its category for display architecture at the 2013 World Architecture Festival.

UNITED ARAB EMIRATES

Masdar City

Normally, we’d associate the United Arab Emirates (UAE) with excess:
the world recreated in man-made islands (“Anyone for Nigeria?”) or very,
very big, pointy towers, a la Burj Khalifa. Abu Dhabi’s new World Trade
Centre won’t disappoint on that count but for something completely
different, Dubai’s bankroller is also home to a sustainable,
zero-carbon, zero-waste, car-free city.

Set beside Abu Dhabi’s airport, Masdar City is designed by
British architect Norman Foster of Foster & Partners. A so-called
“arcology” project, which marries architecture and ecology to create
self-sustaining, densely populated cities, Masdar City runs on solar
energy – sensibly, given it’s built in a sunny desert.

Expect
super-modernity from the car-free city, which is connected by little
driver-less pods, but expect also lessons from the past, such as wind
towers, or barjeels, Iran’s ancient alternative to air-con (masdarcity.ae).

The Shard

BRITAIN
Architects
feature consistently in the top 10 sexiest occupations, which must make
Renzo Piano, co-architect of Paris’s Centre Georges Pompidou,
absolutely irresistible. Britain is currently revelling in golden years
and Piano’s Shard, which opened in February, is the new jewel in
London’s skyline. Stats first: topping 310 metres, yes, it’s the tallest
building in Western Europe, with 11,000 glass panels and, amazingly, 90
per cent of its construction materials are recycled. It’s not just a
viewpoint, the tower will soon house a hotel, four restaurants and
residencies with a price tag from £30 million ($50 million) (the-shard.com).

Shard aside (and we haven’t even gone to Glasgow’s
Commonwealth Games build), this year’s top talking points are all
low-to-the-ground historical landmarks, led by the new Mary Rose museum
in Portsmouth, which opened in May. The Mary Rose, a 16th-century Tudor
warship, was built on these docks in 1510, sinking after 34 years’
service. She was raised from the bed of the Solent River and four
centuries and $56 million later, is now encircled by a modern museum
displaying her sunken treasure. The museum is designed by architects
Wilkinson Eyre, the name behind Singapore’s Gardens by the Bay and the
Crown Sydney resort at Barangaroo (maryrose.org).

Going further back into the mists of time, the new visitors
centre at Stonehenge is set to open in February next year, after two
decades and more than $60 million spent on planning and construction.
The building has sparked interest among the design community for the
hurdles it faced: the low-key design, by Denton Corker Marshall, sits
lightly on the ground so as to not disturb nor detract from the ancient
Salisbury plain (stonehenge.co.uk).

The Mary Rose.

Serious design aficionados already have their names down for
the chance to sleep amid the serene architecture of celebrated architect
Peter Zumthor, winner of the RIBA Royal Gold Medal 2013. The Secular
Retreat, which taps into the concept of “ecclesiastical architecture”
(read “monastic use of rammed concrete”) is located among the rolling
hills of South Devon and will be completed in 2014 (living-architecture.co.uk).

OCEANIA
As a half-Tasmanian, here’s a sentence I never thought I’d
utter: “You must go to Glenorchy and check out this amazing piece of
architecture.” The Glenorchy Art and Sculpture Park (GASP!) sits on the
banks of the Derwent River, just a couple of kilometres downstream from
another fine architectural statement, Museum of Old and New Art (MONA).

GASP, Tasmania

Designed by the young guns at Room 11, a boardwalk that curls around the
bay to MONA opened in 2011, followed in April by a new pavilion of rose
glass and concrete that juts out over the river. GASP! is already a
popular promenade and there are plans for regular art events and a new
social enterprise cafe and food truck. Ferry to MONA and hire bikes to
coast down to GASP or borrow free Art Bikes in Hobart and ride 30
minutes to GASP! (gasp.org.au, arts.tas.gov.au/artsatwork/artbikes).

Across the pond to New Zealand, the Cardboard Cathedral in
Christchurch officially opened in late August, already has a solid fan
base. Designed and donated to the city by “emergency architect” Shigeru
Ban after the Anglican cathedral was destroyed in the 2011 earthquake,
the temporary cathedral is an exercise in the resilience of faith and
community. Made from gigantic cardboard tubes, it has a life span of
about 20 years (christchurchnz.com/planning/cardboard-cathedral).

Architecturally, across the world there is no one trend:
there are small conversations and there are immense statements. With
Australia’s and the world’s top awards soon to be announced, the
conversation continues.

FIVE CITY ARCHITECTURE TOURS
MELTOURS ARCHITECTURE TOUR
Found in Melbourne; costs $39, phone 0407 380 969; see meltours.com.au.
SYDNEY ARCHITECTURE WALKS
Costs from $30; phone 0403 888 390; see sydneyarchitecture.org.
CHICAGO ARCHITECTURE FOUNDATION
Costs from $10; phone +312 922 3432; see architecture.org.
THE BAUHAUS TOUR
Found in Tel Aviv, Israel; costs $18; see bauhaus-center.com/tours.php.
EDINBURGH ARCHITECTURE TOURS
Found in Scotland, phone +44 1620 825722; see edinburgharchitecture.co.uk.

FIVE MORE OCEANIA BUILDINGS

MELBOURNE
Occupying the corner of Swanston and Victoria Streets, the
super-restrained Design Hub by Sean Godsell Architects is tipped to
clean up at this year’s national architecture awards, agree Eoghan Lewis
and Jerome Miller, of Meltours Architecture Tours. The building’s
“skin” is a grid of disks that can be rotated to catch the sun,
ultimately to power the building. Jerome also names 700 Bourke Street,
Docklands worth a look for its vivid “slices”, best seen from Southern
Cross Station.

CANBERRA
Opened in February, the National Arboretum is 250 hectares
dominated by a dramatic amphitheatre with secret gardens, cork oak
forests and high-arched, stone-clad visitor centre overlooking Lake
Burley Griffin, designed by Tonkin Zulaikha Greer Architects and
landscape architects Taylor Cullity Lethlean (nationalarboretum.act.gov.au).

SYDNEY
The new Prince Alfred Park+Pool in Surry Hills is designed by
Neeson Murcutt Architects and Sue Barnsley Design. The 50-metre heated
outdoor pool lined playfully with palms and smart, sunny yellow
umbrellas, set amid grassy mounds that “fold” over the main building,
hiding it from street view (princealfred.org).

AUCKLAND
The Auckland Gallery Toi o Tamaki has just been named 2013
World Building of the Year at the World Architecture Festival. It was
remodelled by Sydney’s FJMT and Auckland-based Archimedia and reopened
in September 2011 (aucklandartgallery.com).

This feature by Belinda Jackson was published in the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper.