Today’s most important new feats of architecture, art, and design don’t just boldly reimagine our world, they enrich it—sparking joy, igniting imagination, and building community. The world’s newest architectural showstoppers include a birdhouse-covered hotel suite suspended in the woods of Harads, Sweden; Sydney’s $230-million transformation of a naval bunker into an arts complex; and a futuristic sports stadium in China’s Zhejiang Province designed to mimic nearby mountainous terrain.

1. House of Music Hungary
Budapest, Hungary
A delight for the eyes and the ears, this otherworldly performance venue and exhibition space by Sou Fujimoto features a roof perforated by 145 uniquely shaped openings—some light wells, others cutouts for trees. Glass walls merge indoors with the sylvan surroundings.

2. Richard Gilder Center for Science, Education, and Innovation
New York City, US
Studio Gang’s spellbinding addition to the American Museum of Natural History is not just a feat of construction, it’s also a powerful boon to visitor experience: improving circulation, affording access to otherwise unseen wonders, and fostering a more permeable connection with the neighborhood.

3. The City by Michael Heizer
Garden Valley, Nevada, US
Decades in the making, artist Michael Heizer’s magnum opus combines volumes of compacted earth and concrete into a desert showstopper—more than a mile and a half long by a half mile wide. Oft compared to ancient ruins, this masterpiece is unlike anything we’ve ever seen.

4. Rosewood São Paulo
São Paulo, Brazil
There are hotels and then there’s this Brazilian hospitality hot spot, a sybaritic plexus of architecture, design, and art. Here, a green tower by Jean Nouvel mingles with interiors by Philippe Starck, gardens by Louis Benech, and site-specific installations by the likes of Brazilian artists Vik Muniz and Sandra Cinto, all on the site of a former maternity hospital.