Visit St. Petersburg_Clearwater
The Dali Museum
Florida, US
We think the Spanish surrealist would have approved of the new museum in St Petersburg, Florida, which opened at 11.11am on 11.1.11 this year - the building is like a glass slug hoovering up a geometric angular box. Built with walls thick enough to withstand a category five hurricane, the museum houses a priceless collection of over 2,000 Dalí pieces.
The ambitious design team was led by Yann Weymouth of HOK, the man who worked closely with IM Pei for the Grand Louvre project. Inside, the concrete spiral staircase rising through the 22 metre-high glass atrium is inspired by Dalí's fascination with the double helix of DNA.
Lotus-shaped ArtScience Museum in Singapore
These buildings are a nightmare to maintain.
One not on the list is New Change in the city of London.
It has a monumental telescopic crane on the roof so that the windows can be cleaned (and presumably glass fixings examined for corrosion so that falling glass panes do not slice people up). In ten years or less that crane will need overhauling. That in itself will be a massive task and expense.
This is a form of architecture we could all do without.
Innovative - sometimes artists have to be "in the future" they seem to convey visions of tomorrow