This week on Dezeen: Toyo Ito's cavernous opera house opened in the Taiwanese city of Taichung, while cultural buildings by Zaha Hadid Architects and Amanda Levete neared completion.
The 58,000-square-metre Taichung Metropolitan Opera House was designed by Japanese architect Toyo Ito with a series of hourglass wells in its facade. It officially opened to the public yesterday.
First photographs revealed of Amanda Levete's MAAT museum in Lisbon
New images offered a first look at two important cultural buildings nearing completion ? Amanda Levete's undulating, tile-covered MAAT museum in Lisbon and a vast cultural complex in the Chinese city of Nanjing by Zaha Hadid Architects.
Apple to set up campus in London's Battersea Power Station Elsewhere, billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk announced plans to start manned missions to Mars as soon as 2022, and tech giant Apple revealed it will create a new London headquarters inside Battersea Power Station.
"Living legend" Paulo Mendes da Rocha to receive 2017 RIBA Royal Gold Medal
In other architecture news, Paulo Mendes da Rocha was named as the 2017 recipient of the Royal Gold Medal, with RIBA president Jane Duncan describing the Brazilian architect as "a true living legend".
It was also announced that the designer for next year's Serpentine Pavilion in London will be selected by a team including architects Richard Rogers and David Adjaye.
"Design is about form and art is more about ideas" says ...