Year in Architecture 2016

Week 1: New York Governor Andrew Cuomo called for the overhaul of the long-derided Penn Station.
Week 2: Alejandro Aravena was named the 2016 recipient of the Pritzker Architecture Prize.
Week 3: The American Institute of Architects named its 2016 AIA Institute Honor Awards.
Week 4: The winner of the World War I Memorial competition in Washington, DC, was announced.

Selected Insight: Highlights from 'Global Citizen,' an exhibition on Moshe Safdie
Selected Product: EPFL's Zigzags, a building by Dominique Perrault

Week 5: HOK + TAC won the competition for the New FC Barcelona Palau; Mexico City's Escobedo Solíz Studio won the MoMA PS1 Young Architects Program.
Week 6: Indian architect Bijoy Jain was selected for the third MPavilion in Melbourne; Bjarke Ingels was selected to design the 2016 Serpentine Pavilion in London.
Week 7: The AIANY Medal of Honor was given to Annabelle Selldorf.
Week 8: China made its move away from "weird" architecture official.

Selected Insight: With Reverence and Healthy Self-Assurance, a peek inside the Swiss National Museum
Selected Product: Creative EIFS, a renovation with a bold, faceted red facade made from Exterior Insulation and Finishing System

Week 9: The New York chapter of the American Institute of Architects announced its 2016 Design Awards.
Week 10: Santiago Calatrava's PATH Terminal quietly opened in Lower Manhattan; FC Barcelona selected Nikken Sekkei + Pascual i Ausió Arquitectes for the new Camp Nou.
Week 11: Dubai's Expo 2020 selected BIG, Foster, and Grimshaw to design three themed pavilions; the MIPIM Awards were held in France.
Week 12: The Australian Embassy, designed by Denton Corker Marshall, opened in Jakarta. 
Week 13: Zaha Hadid died unexpectedly of a heart attack on March 31st.

Selected Insight: Finding the Muse, on the inspirations of leading landscape architects
Selected Product: A Bit of Drama for Bolon, a tiny yet striking lighting installation in an eyewear store in China

Week 14: Productora won the second MCHAP.emerge Award.
Week 15: Some female architects "spoke out" after Dame Zaha Hadid's death.
Week 16: Zaha Hadid Architects issued a note of thanks and statement regarding how the firm would move forward without its namesake founder. 
Week 17: World-Architects attended the Vectorworks Design Summit in Chicago to learn about the software company's "technology roadmap."

Selected Insight: Outside Your Comfort Zone: Eva Franch i Gilabert at the (Vectorworks) Summit, an interview with the Storefront for Art and Architecture's director
Selected Product: From Brick to Crystal, MVRDV's recreation of a historic Amsterdam rowhouse in glass bricks

Week 18: ARM Architecture won the Gold Medal of the Australian Achievement in Architecture Awards; the Cooper Hewitt announced the 2016 National Design Awards winners.
Week 19: Louis Kahn's Yale Center for British Art reopened.
Week 20: Agence Ter won Pershing Square competition in Los Angeles; architect Romaldo Giurguola died in Canberra, Australia.
Week 21: Paulo Mendes da Rocha received the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the Venice Biennale.

Selected Insight: Reporting on 'Reporting from the Front,' our coverage of the 2016 Venice Architecture Biennale, directed by Alejandro Aravena
Selected Product: For the Birds, a building at Vassar College whose glass facade protects birds

Week 22: Vitra opened the Herzog & de Meuron-designed Schaudepot, the latest building on its campus studded with architectural icons.
Week 23: BIG's "Unzipped Wall" opened at the Serpentine Gallery in London.
Week 24: David Adjaye won a competition to design the Latvian Museum of Contemporary Art.
Week 25: Christo's "Floating Piers" opened to the public at Lake Iseo in northern Italy; the Lucas Museum ditched Chicago for the West Coast.
Week 26: Lucas may have left, but Obama stayed: the Obama Foundation selected Tod Williams and Billie Tsien to design the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago.

Selected Insight: Studio (Re)Visit: OMA NY, three years after our first talk with Shohei Shigematsu
Selected Product: Green Glazed Tiles Adorn Ringling Museum of Art, designed by Boston's Machado Silvetti

Week 27: Winners of the European Prize for Urban Public Space were announced.
Week 28: Recipients of the 2016 International Architecture Awards were announced.
Week 29: Works by Le Corbusier and Oscar Niemeyer were added to UNESCO's World Heritage List.
Week 30: The Obama Foundation selected (finally) a Chicago site for the Obama Presidential Center.

Selected Insight: 'Time Space Existence' and Other Collateral Events at the Biennale, our last bit of coverage from Venice
Selected Product: An Icy Vista, on below-grade Silesian Museum in Katowice, Poland

Week 31: The Daily News was on summer holiday.
Week 32: LACMA released new renderings of Peter Zumthor's design – we weren't impressed; Diller Scofidio + Renfro's sectional Vagelos Center opened in New York.
Week 33: Harvard's Bauhaus digital archive went online.
Week 34: Winners of the American Architecture Awards were announced.
Week 35: Architects Advocate Action on Climate Change launched.

Selected Insight: The Pro-Brexit Architect, or foreshadowing to Patrik Schumacher's remarks at WAF in November
Selected Product: Tin House in London, a project with roofs and walls clad in standing seam metal panels

Week 36: 'After Belonging,' the Oslo Architecture Triennale, opened in Oslo; REX unveiled their design for the WTC Performing Arts Center in New York.
Week 37: Paulo Mendes da Rocha was named a recipient of the 2016 Praemium Imperiale; Peter Zumthor selected to expand Renzo Piano's Fondation Beyeler; Thomas Heatherwick unveiled his 'Vessel' installation for New York's Hudson Yards development.
Week 38: Sharon Johnston and Mark Lee named artistic directors for the 2017 Chicago Architecture Biennial.
Week 39: Another Paulo Mendes da Rocha win: the Brazilian architect was named the 2017 RIBA Royal Gold Medal recipient.

Selected Insight: WTC at 15, a look at 15 pieces of the World Trade Center site 15 years after 9/11
Selected Product: Shading the Strip, a new park in Las Vegas with real and artificial trees

Week 40: A busy week!: Winner of Rosa Barba International Landscape Prize announced; six projects named 2016 Aga Khan Award winners; Bijoy Jain's MPavilion opened in Melbourne; Bing Thom died at the age of 75; Caruso St. John gallery won the RIBA Stirling Prize.
Week 41: Winners of the inaugural American Architecture Prize were announced.
Week 42: SANAA's Grace Farms was named MCHAP 2014-15 winner.
Week 43: Inaugural YTAA (Young Talent Architecture Award) winners were announced.

Selected Insight: An Inside View of Hotels, our interview with IDA14's Karsten Schmidt
Selected Product: Lighting a 'Dark Park' at King's Cross, the illumination of a historic gasholder in London

Week 44: BIG's VIA 57 WEST won a high-rise award.
Week 45: A social housing project in the Netherlands won the 2016 WMF/Knoll Modernism Prize.
Week 46: World-Architects attended WAF in Berlin, where National Museum in Szczecin – Dialogue Centre Przelomy was named Building of the Year.
Week 47: RIBA's inaugural International Prize given to building in Peru.
Week 48: Helsinki rejected Guggenheim's proposed waterfront museum.

Selected Insight: WAF 2016 Highlights, our coverage of the ninth annual festival, including Schumacher's call for "the privatization of all public spaces"
Selected Product: A Hardwood 'Smile,' on Alison Brooks' installation at the London Design Festival

Week 49: Paul Revere Williams named the 2017 AIA Gold Medal recipient, the first African-American architect to win the honor, albeit posthumously.
Week 50: Kengo Kuma's stadium for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics broke ground; I.M. Pei's iconic pyramid at the Louvre named the 2017 Twenty-five Year Award winner

Selected Insight: 2016 Monograph Roundup, a baker's dozen of books on W-A member firms
Selected Product: Protecting La Cité du Vin, a new museum in Bordeaux, France

Here are renderings of some notable projects that are expected to be completed and open next year. Of course, things have a way of changing in architecture and construction, so please don't be upset with us if these buildings aren't finished by the end of 2017!