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What often fascinate me more are the actual museums. They are the architectural currency of the modern world really. Today there are more than 55.000 museums worldwide, more than double the number 25 years ago. Amid all these new international openings, it’s vital to identify the most pilgrimage-worthy new sites you must visit now or when they open within the next few years. 
01. Museu do Amanhã, Rio de Janeiro
The spectacular building designed by Santiago Calatrava is itself a draw to this science museum, a 15,000m sq area on the Pier Mauá that incorporates a huge reflective pool, gardens, and cycle paths. The main exhibition at the “museum of tomorrow” is the brainchild of physicist and cosmologist Luiz Alberto Oliveira. 
02. Shanghai Natural History Museum, Shanghai
The building is shaped like a nautilus shell, one of the finest examples of a logarithmic spiral found in nature, and it seems to grow out of the gardens at Jing’an Sculpture Park. Natural elements are depicted throughout the exterior, including a “cell wall” on the north facade that represents the cellular structure of plants and animals and casts cell-shaped shadows inside the exhibition areas. 
03. La Cité Du Vin, Bordeaux
Just opened this summer, the much-anticipated Cité du Vin, a state-of-the-art center dedicated to the history of viticulture (the science of winemaking), will transform the landscape of historic Bordeaux with its curvaceous, futuristic look. This imposing gold and aluminium building overlooking the Garonne River appears to flow up into the sky, like wine swirling up the rim of a glass. 
04. Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa, Cape Town
German-born fashion executive Jochen Zeitz has found a permanent his comprehensive contemporary art collection. The new museum will be structured around a historic 1920’s grain silo building on Cape Town’s V&A Waterfront. 
05. The Broad, Los Angeles
Located in downtown Los Angeles, The Broad was one of the most talked about recent openings in the art world, and not just because of its extensive and highly valuable collection of postwar and contemporary art (financed by Eli Broad). The building itself an innovative “veil-and-vault” concept that caught everyone’s eye and has been a big go-to for LA Instagramers ever since. 
06. National Museum of Qatar, Doha
This Jean Nouvel-designed delight, a series of interconnecting white discs, inspired by the desert rose. Expects impressice displays like the $2,7 million pearl necklace by Cartier owned by art-loving Sheikha Al Mayassa, who is also the founder of the museum. 
07. Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris
Paris’ Bois de Boulogne, an idyllic 200-acre park created in the 1800’s, hides one of the most modern buildings in the city. The Foundation Louis Vuitton, which opened just over a year ago, is a center for international contemporary art commissioned by the fashion brand’s cultural foundation. The structure’s twirling, almost cloud-like form is provided by twelve curving sails made of thousand of glass panels. Many have called it a tour de force for one of the world’s most famous architectures.
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