Best new galleries and museums in the world

An influx of new cultural attractions that showcase everything from Egyptian antiquities to contemporary art deserve a place on your travel wishlist.

The Bourse de Commerce Pinault Collection in Paris.

Explore the world’s leading cultural hubs and inventive design destinations in the latest edition of Travel + Luxury magazine, available online and in the newspaper on Friday, 21 October.

There’s nothing like losing yourself in a soul-stirring gallery. Art in all its forms can comfort, reflect ourselves back to us in novel ways, and make visible the threads between seemingly disparate people and cultures. It can challenge us, broaden the mind and enliven the spirit. But it’s also a way of making sense of our world, and the past few years have left more of us scratching our heads than ever. Whatever floats your boat, there’s a new gallery or museum for you – from Murakami fans to Egyptology buffs, Fellini cineastes to American dreamers. Many also include a focus on education and civic engagement, inclusivity and innovation. Art elevates us. It’s time to get out there and enjoy it again. These are the latest cultural landmarks worth travelling for.

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1. National Museum of Norway and Munch Museum, Oslo

I Call it Art, the opening show at the National Museum of Norway.

This June saw the newly crowned largest museum in the Nordics open its vast collection of art, architecture and design, all under one roof. One extraordinary roof, mind you. The glowing, 2400-square-metre Light Hall has 9000 energy-efficient, adjustable LED lights sequestered in the walls, providing diffused light for its temporary exhibitions (first up: I Call it Art, which took “the pulse of contemporary art in Norway”). The 20th-century masters such as Picasso and Matisse get their share of the limelight, with upcoming exhibitions from Kahlo and Rothko. From Golden Age Flemish landscapes to the Norwegian Baldishol tapestry from circa 1190, fashion archives to works by Edvard Munch (including a version of The Scream), the museum spans an impressive breadth of Nordic culture and international art. Speaking of Munch – the recently arrived Munch Museum rises dramatically from the waterfront, its upper levels appearing to bow to the city. Permanent and rotating displays of Munch’s works live alongside immersive experiences aimed at getting visitors inside his headspace – the Brain Maze is designed to unleash the imagination.

2. Grand Egyptian Museum, Egypt

Statue restoration at the Grand Egyptian Museum.

When it eventually opens (slated to be November), the Grand Egyptian Museum will hold the world’s largest collection of artefacts – more than 100,000 – dedicated to a single civilisation. It’s an extraordinary bounty, thousands of years in the making, and well worth the wait. Just two kilometres from the Pyramids, on the outskirts of Cairo on the Giza Plateau, the staggering endeavour also marks the first time all King Tutankhamun’s treasures, including his death mask, will be displayed together (this year is the centenary of the discovery of his tomb). A colossal statue of King Ramses II greets visitors in the Grand Hall, sited so the sun will shine on his face on 21 February each year, just as the ancient Egyptians originally designed the Great Temple of Abu Simbel 3000 years ago. Other highlights include a 4600-year-old pharaonic boat, and a large double statue of the gods Amun and Mut. Casual and fine-dining restaurants, a children’s museum, library, cinema, auditorium and vast palm-dotted gardens round out this behemoth.

3. The Haruki Murakami Library, Tokyo, Japan

The dramatic staircase bookshelves at the Haruki Murakami Library in Tokyo.

Fans of Haruki Murakami’s spare yet evocative, accessible yet almost otherworldly writing will delight in this ode to the master craftsman’s life and work. Set
on his former campus at Tokyo’s Waseda University, the Haruki Murakami Library, aka the Waseda International House of Literature, houses first editions, collected works, handwritten manuscripts, correspondence, and even a faithful recreation of his study and some of his favourite vinyl, plus a cafe manned by students. Immerse yourself in his books on the gorgeous wooden staircase bookshelves or listen to the original grand piano from the author’s former jazz bar, Peter Cat. Live events see Murakami and visitors read works to an audience in the cocooning surrounds. The library aims to encourage continued learning and cultural exchange: “Learning is really no different from breathing,” says Murakami. “I hope this library will become a place of learning where you can breathe easy, a place that will allow you to pass through walls of all kinds – whether those erected within academic institutions or along national borders.” This may be the low-key-coolest celebration of literature we’ve come across yet. waseda.jp/culture

4. Fellini Museum, Rimini, Italy

Clips from La Dolce Vita projected onto the façade of the Galli Theatre.

Trust the Italians to take the extravagant, larger-than-life creativity of one of film’s greatest directors and amplify it even further. The new Fellini Museum is the largest of its kind named after the director, and is hailed as a truly immersive experience. Federico Fellini regarded the seaside port of Rimini, his birthplace, as “a dimension of memory”. Sprawling across a 15th-century fortress, an 18th-century palazzo (home, on its ground floor, to the Fulgor, the cinema immortalised in 1973’s Amarcord) and an outdoor piazza (Piazza dei Sogni or “Square of Dreams”), the museum invites visitors to follow the director’s instinct for blurring the lines between imagination and reality – from film projections onto castle walls to fantastical installations (a large “veil of water” in the piazza blows mist reminiscent of scenes from his films) and movie sets to the director’s rather risqué sketches. It’s a fascinating concept – this living, breathing museum, part of the very fabric of the city – in which each visitor directs one’s own journey through an experience where “everything is imagined”, in the words of the maestro himself.

5. Denver Art Museum, Denver, USA

By Design exhibition at Denver Art Museum.

After a four-year revamp, the Denver Art Museum has taken a huge step forward in the quest to encapsulate the art of the Americas. The 1971-built fortress-like Martin Building is the only completed North American project by renowned Italian modernist Gio Ponti, in concert with Denver architects James Sudler and Joal Cronenwett. “If a museum has to protect works of art, isn’t it only right that it should be a castle?” asked Ponti. The refresh includes extended gallery space, the restoration of the sun-catching glass tiles on the building’s facade, and the new glass-walled Sie Welcome Center. The Indigenous Arts of North America Galleries have been reimagined and include video testimonials that speak to Indigenous experiences. A new gallery is dedicated to contemporary Latin American art, while a collection of art of the American West has been unified in one space.

6. M+ Museum and Hong Kong Palace Museum

M+ Museum and Hong Kong Palace Museum.

Two new milestones have recently been unveiled in Hong Kong’s West Kowloon Cultural District, signifying a burst of creative firepower for the city. The M+ Museum opened the doors to its 65,000 square metres of contemporary art late last year. This striking showcase (both inside and out – behemothic LED screens project lights and images across Victoria Harbour) finds itself at a cultural flashpoint of sorts as it seeks to assert Hong Kong’s creative capital and examine the role of art within the frame of politics. From a huge video sculpture blaring moments of celebration and suffering (from duo Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries) to Hong Kong: Here and Beyond, an exhibition exploring the city’s visual culture from the ’60s to today, M+ aims to be more than a gallery. Four permanent collections, such as the M+ Sigg Collection – one of the largest of contemporary Chinese art in the world, including works by Ai Weiwei – form the backbone of the endeavour. Meanwhile, the Hong Kong Palace brings some 900 pieces from Beijing’s Palace Museum to the city, from early examples of Chinese calligraphy and painting to an exhibition in which six Hong Kong-based artists interpret the art of the Forbidden City.

7. Sydney Modern Project

A render of the Sydney Modern project.

Opening in December, this $344 million venture promises to be the hit of summer (and beyond), providing “more art for more people” by almost doubling the Art Gallery of NSW’s display space. The new building will be connected to the existing gallery by an art garden and civic plaza, drawing upon the site’s stunning Sydney Harbour outlook. Pritzker Prize-winning architects Sanaa have ensured a sustainable approach to this lush, light-filled development, awarded the highest rating for eco-friendly design by the Green Building Council of Australia. A dedicated space upon entry celebrates First Nations art and culture alongside a rotation of visiting exhibitions. Renowned artist and “princess of polka dots” Yayoi Kusama is one of nine artists commissioned to create site-specific new works for the gallery, while the existing building will also receive a refresh.

8. Bourse de Commerce – Pinault Collection, Paris

Bourse de Commerce - Pinault Collection. Picture: Luc Castel/GettyImages

This jaw-dropping contemporary art gallery in the grand, historic former Paris Stock Exchange building presents over 10,000 works by nearly 400 artists from the private collection of François Pinault, founder of luxury group Kering (Balenciaga, Gucci, Saint Laurent, among others). Representing Pinault’s “penchant for emerging trends”, the works from the 1960s to today span 10 gallery spaces. Japanese architect Tadao Ando worked within the classified monument’s existing circular design (it originally functioned as a wheat exchange), inserting a nine-metre-high concrete cylinder in the original rotunda. The relationship between the storied setting and its resident modern artworks is thrilling. Bertrand Lavier’s colourful installations with “distinct Duchampian undertones” occupy 24 display cases built for the World Fair of 1889, while several artists were invited to produce in-situ works to “create a dialogue between the architecture and the exhibits”. To wit: a stuttering animatronic mouse peeking out of a hole in the wall near an elevator, trapped in an animated loop – perhaps encouraging visitors to reflect on their own existence. An astonishingly lifelike self-portrait sculpture, realistic enough to trick you into thinking you’ve stumbled across the weary artist Duane Hanson himself. A flock of motionless stuffed pigeons observing the gallery from an interior balcony. Art is life, non?

9. Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Atchugarry, Punta del Este

The striking Atchugarry Museum in Punta del Este.

The brainchild of Uruguayan sculptor Pablo Atchugarry and designed by famed architect Carlos Ott (who gained recognition with the construction of the Opéra Bastille in Paris), the country’s most comprehensive contemporary art museum certainly makes an arresting first impression. Its wavelike form is at once imposing and part of the rolling green landscape, constructed using red grandis eucalyptus wood and surrounded by marble outdoor sculptures hewn by Atchugarry himself. Opening this past January with an exhibition showcasing the work of Christo and Jeanne-Claude, and displaying more than 500 works by Latin American and international artists in Uruguay for the first time, the museum also has a sculpture park with 70 works. Atchugarry’s nearby charitable foundation hosts regular free cultural events (entrance to the gallery is also free of charge). The gallery aims to attract international visitors as well as locals, becoming a hub for culture, debates, education and reflection – he sees it as a “cultural legacy that I leave for Uruguay”.

10. Istanbul Modern, Istanbul, Turkey

Istanbul Modern, Istanbul, Turkey.

This new complex, designed by esteemed Italian architect Renzo Piano – he of the Centre Georges Pompidou fame – marks the return of the Istanbul Modern (originally established in 2004) to its birthplace on the lively waterfront of historic neighbourhood Karaköy, on the Bosphorus Strait. (The gallery had been moved to the Union Française building in Beyoğlu while works were completed on its new home.) The new Istanbul Modern building is part of the extensive Galataport development on the waterfront, encompassing the world’s first underground cruise ship terminal, hotel (The Peninsula Istanbul, set to open next year), an extensive promenade for soaking up views over the Bosphorus, restaurants, and shops. The project helped earn Istanbul a place on Time magazine’s list of The World’s Greatest Places of 2022. While details of the launch are still under wraps, the new building will have a cinema, library, design shop, cafe and restaurant alongside exhibition halls and educational workshops.