The inauguration of new art institutions around the globe signals cultural resilience and renewal.
“Art has a unique ability to serve as a bridge between people of disparate backgrounds and beliefs,” art collector and museum patron Jorge PΓ©rez told Observer in an interview last year. “No matter the medium, art can also ignite one’s imagination and spark new ideas.” While few of us will ever amass collections to rival PΓ©rez’s, most of us live or work within driving distance of an art museum, whether grand like the Metropolitan Museum of Art or more modest, like Michigan State’s Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum.
Art museums, regardless of their size, face a minefield of challenges, from how best to preserve, share and display collections to how to attract new audiences while cultivating loyalty among those visitors who might eventually become patrons to how to push boundaries without sparking backlash. And let’s not forget that these institutions, often seen as permanent fixtures, are anything but. New museums open with great fanfare, and others close—sometimes surprisingly quietly. As Daniel H. Weiss highlights in Why the Museum Matters, these cultural beacons are vital to preserving our collective heritage, yet their futures remain precarious.
In the past year, this uncertainty was palpable. New York’s Rubin Museum bid farewell to its physical space, announcing its plan to become a decentralized “museum without walls.” Washington state’s Bellevue Arts Museum—one of the very few art museums to grow out of an art fair—shut its doors in September, citing post-pandemic declines in attendance, fundraising, and retail sales. The University of New Hampshire Museum of Art followed suit, closing abruptly after a $14 million budget cut.
Yet, the art world’s landscape wasn’t entirely grim. Norwegian hedge fund manager and art collector Nicolai Tangen unveiled Kunstsilo in Kristiansand, Norway, while the Museum Reinhard Ernst opened in Wiesbaden, Germany. In France, former hedge fund manager Christian Levett transformed his Mougins Museum of Classical Art into the Femmes Artistes du MusΓ©e de Mougins, a tribute to women artists. Meanwhile, museum expansions around the globe signaled pockets of resilience and renewal.
A few institutions, however, did not open as planned in 2024, which is why some of 2025’s most anticipated museum openings and expansions are holdovers from last year’s list. Here’s what you can look forward to:
Opening: Naoshima New Museum of Art
This spring, Naoshima, a small Japanese island community famous for its art and architecture, will see the debut of the Naoshima New Museum of Art, a low-slung hilltop structure designed by Tadao Ando that promises to deepen the already profound cultural allure of Benesse Art Site Naoshima. Marking Ando’s tenth masterpiece for the island, the unique three-story museum, with its two basement levels and bright and airy ground floor, will showcase a cutting-edge collection of major and commissioned works from contemporary Asian artists. The Naoshima New Museum of Art’s inaugural group exhibition—tentatively titled “The Inaugural Exhibition”—will showcase large-scale installations by eleven artists and collectives, including Takashi Murakami and Cai Guo-Qiang, while a series of public programs that include talks and workshops have been scheduled to encourage repeat visits and broader community engagement.
Opening: The Mucha Museum in Prague
The Mucha Museum, set to open late this month in Prague’s meticulously restored Savarin Palace, promises to be more than a shrine to Art Nouveau’s master—it’s a reclamation of Alphonse Mucha’s rightful place in the pantheon of modern art. While Paris may have immortalized him as the visionary behind Sarah Bernhardt’s iconic posters and America heralded his arrival with front-page fanfare, Mucha’s legacy suffered a long eclipse under the Soviet regime, which dismissed his intricate, nationalistic works as “bourgeois” and stifled his influence. The Mucha Museum aims to rewrite the narrative of a man who pioneered public art and shaped cultural identity across continents. The institution’s opening will coincide with Alphonse Mucha exhibitions stateside, including “Timeless Mucha” at Washington, D.C.’s Phillips Collection, signaling a much-needed global renaissance for an artist who had a profound political and cultural impact with artistry and ideals that transcended borders and time.
Opening: Refik Anadol’s DATALAND
Refik Anadol, who made headlines when his monumental work Unsupervised – Machine Hallucinations was acquired by MoMA, is set to make history by opening the world’s first institution dedicated entirely to championing, promoting and showcasing the creative synergy between art and A.I. Scheduled for a 2025 debut, DATALAND will be located in The Grand LA, the Frank Gehry-designed development in Los Angeles’ cultural epicenter, close to other important L.A. cultural institutions, such as The Broad, MOCA, The Music Center, Walt Disney Concert Hall, REDCAT and The Colburn School. The opening will be, Anadol told Observer, the realization of a long-held dream. “With DATALAND, we will be able to create and exhibit immersive experiences that fully integrate digital art with architectural spaces in collaboration with renowned firms like Gensler and Arup.”
Opening: FENIX in Rotterdam
FENIX, an ambitious new art museum inspired by migration stories from across the globe, is set to open this May in a striking space designed by Beijing-based MAD Architects in collaboration with Bureau Polderman. Overlooking the former headquarters of the Holland America Line, an iconic gateway of transatlantic migration, the museum will tackle themes of transnational movement and global exchange through the lens of contemporary art. At the heart of FENIX’s design is its show-stopping Tornado staircase, crafted from gleaming stainless steel. This architectural marvel anchors the museum’s transformation of Katendrecht, a harborside neighborhood once known as Rotterdam’s red-light district and home to continental Europe’s oldest Chinatown. FENIX’s founders envision it as more than just a repository—they see the museum as a new way for institutions to showcase artworks—one rooted in its local community and sustainable, attuned to the importance of heritage buildings and ready to offer fresh perspectives on art and humanity.
Opening: MACAM – Museu de Arte ContemporΓ’nea Armando Martins
The opening of the Museu de Arte ContemporΓ’nea Armando Martins (MACAM) in Lisbon will give the public access to one of Portugal’s most remarkable private art collections. Amassed over five decades by Armando Martins, the collection spans more than 600 works, showcasing Portuguese art from the late 19th Century to the 1980s, along with international masterpieces from the 1980s onward. The museum’s first section delves deep into Portuguese naturalism, avant-garde movements and modernism, featuring work by luminaries like Almada Negreiros, Paula Rego, Vieira da Silva and JΓΊlio Pomar. Its second section ventures into the cutting-edge realms of contemporary art, bringing works by global heavyweights such as Marina AbramoviΔ, Olafur Eliasson, John Baldessari and Rirkrit Tiravanija into dialogue with Portugal’s finest.
Opening: BΓ«t-bi museum and cultural center
BΓ«t-bi, set to open in Senegal later this year, aims to challenge the very concept of what a museum can and should be. Designed by Nigerien architect Mariam Issoufou and her award-winning firm, the 1,000-square-meter complex developed by the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation and Le Korsa will sit near the ancient megaliths of Senegambia—home to four UNESCO World Heritage sites—melding sustainable and traditional building methods with a forward-thinking ethos. More than just a repository for contemporary and historic African art, BΓ«t-bi will house artisan spaces, a library, a cafΓ© and other community gathering spaces. More interestingly, the museum will act as a temporary sanctuary for repatriated African objects, boldly tackling the fraught legacy of looting and colonial theft on the continent.
SEE ALSO: Art Museums Are Increasingly Trialing Amenities to Engage Broader Audiences
Re-opening: The Frick Collection in New York City
Following a five-year major renovation by Selldorf Architects of its historic Fifth Avenue home, the Frick Collection will once again open to the public this April. The $290 million upgrades include the creation of new gallery, education and conservation spaces, as well as increased accessibility and enhanced public amenities. The Frick spared no expense on finishes; textiles and wall hangings have been carefully refurbished by the same firms commissioned by the Frick family over a century ago, including the green velvet in the West Gallery. Beyond the public-facing improvements, $35 million in donations for the project was specifically earmarked for upgrades to the infrastructure, energy efficiency and long-term sustainability of the Gilded Age building. “The intimate encounters with art offered by our historic galleries, along with new spaces transformed from former domestic interiors, remain a cornerstone of the Frick experience,” said Ian Wardropper, the Frick’s outgoing Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Director, in a release. Inaugurating the refreshed galleries are some exciting exhibitions, including “Vermeer’s Love Letters,” which will be on through September 8, 2025.
Re-opening: The Studio Museum in Harlem in New York City
The Studio Museum in Harlem’s much anticipated but quite delayed opening of its new 82,000-square-foot physical space comes with a total rebrand. As the institution’s purpose-built, six-story building designed by David Adjaye in the cultural beat of 125th Street took shape over 2023 and 2024, director and chief curator Thelma Golden was hard at work overseeing the development of a new identity inspired and influenced by Black culture—the unveiling of which was celebrated with a brand launch party at the Renaissance New York in Harlem. The design of the institution’s permanent home, which will have double the exhibition and residency space, is a modern nod to the heritage brownstones of Harlem. The new space will debut with a show featuring the work of artist Tom Lloyd along with exhibitions of artwork from the museum’s permanent collection, which includes pieces by Romare Bearden, Dawoud Bey, Jordan Casteel, Barkley L. Hendricks, Seydou KeΓ―ta, Norman Lewis, Lorraine O’Grady, Faith Ringgold and many others.
Re-opening: The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Michael C. Rockefeller Wing
The long-awaited reopening of The Met’s Michael C. Rockefeller Wing in May will put over 1,800 works from Africa, the Ancient Americas and Oceania on display in a reimagined space that marries innovation with reverence. Closed since 2021, the wing has undergone a sweeping renovation by WHY Architecture and Beyer Blinder Belle, creating galleries that honor regional architectural traditions while integrating cutting-edge technology in displays that reflect new scholarship. Visitors will encounter familiar masterpieces alongside newly acquired works and never-before-seen treasures, including ancient Andean textiles displayed in a first-of-its-kind light-sensitive gallery, Indigenous commissions in the Oceania spaces and contemporary additions to the Arts of Africa collection. A state-of-the-art sloped glass wall will flood the galleries with filtered daylight, forging a deeper connection to Central Park in the revitalized spaces.
Expanding: Portland Art Museum (PAM)
The Portland Art Museum‘s $111-million campus expansion and renovation, set to debut in late 2025, will reshape how the institution engages with its audiences and showcases its collection. Adding nearly 100,000 square feet of new or upgraded space, the project reimagines the museum’s two historic buildings with the striking new 24,000-square-foot glass Rothko Pavilion as its centerpiece, creating a seamless bridge between past and present. PAM’s reinstalled galleries will reject traditional hierarchies in favor of thematic presentations that explore place, community and identity, offering a fresh lens on the institution’s permanent collection. Over 1,000 works will be on display, with a third of them—including 300 new acquisitions by artists such as Jeffrey Gibson, Simone Leigh, Ugo Rondinone, Wendy Red Star, Pedro Reyes, Marie Watt and Carrie Mae Weems—making their public debut.
Expanding: New York’s New Museum
The New Museum‘s $89 million, 60,000-square-foot expansion, designed by OMA’s Shohei Shigematsu and Rem Koolhaas alongside Cooper Robertson, promises to be a transformative addition to Manhattan’s Lower East Side and a bold statement on the museum’s continued evolution. Rising 174 feet directly south of its SANAA-designed flagship, the seven-story annex will replace 231 Bowery, in which the museum’s cultural incubator NEW INC, media affiliate Rhizome and artists’ residencies have been housed. More importantly, the new space seamlessly integrates with its predecessor, fusing the facades from the second through fifth floors while nearly doubling the institution’s footprint to a sprawling 115,277 square feet, adding three expansive gallery floors, an 80-seat restaurant, a larger bookstore and much-needed office space. This isn’t the institution’s first expansion. Since its founding in a temporary Hudson Street space in 1977, the New Museum has strategically grown at pivotal moments, from its 2007 debut of SANAA’s modernist cube at Bowery and Prince Street to this latest iteration on Bowery and Spring.
Moving: Nederlands Fotomuseum in Rotterdam
The Nederlands Fotomuseum’s move to the historic Santos warehouse in Rotterdam’s Katendrecht neighborhood in late 2025 promises to transform the 1903 Brazilian coffee warehouse into an eight-story cultural powerhouse, thanks to a visionary redesign by Renner Hainke Wirth Zirn Architekten and WDJARCHITECTEN. This revamped Grade A-listed landmark, funded with the help of the Droom en Daad Foundation, will house one of the world’s largest photography collections—now numbering six million items—alongside spaces for exhibitions, restoration work, education and even a rooftop restaurant with sweeping views of Rotterdam’s architectural marvels, from OMA’s De Rotterdam to UNStudio’s Erasmus Bridge. Moving across the water from its current home on the Wilhelminapier, the museum, with its unparalleled archives, could solidify the Katendrecht area’s status as a global hub for the exploration of photography as a medium.
Previewing: Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s Wilshire Boulevard campus
LACMA’s long-awaited $750-million expansion on Wilshire Boulevard, designed by Swiss architect Peter Zumthor, is shaping up to be a fascinating case study in ambition, patience and reinvention. Once complete—not this year, but next after a planned 2023 reopening—the sprawling, glass-walled Geffen Galleries will hover over Wilshire on piers like a futuristic bridge. But a temporary certificate of occupancy is set to activate in May, offering art lovers a once-in-a-lifetime chance to explore its empty halls before the laborious process of reinstalling the museum’s 150,000-object collection begins. Think of it as a sneak preview of the most anticipated museum openings and expansions of 2026. After years of delays exacerbated by the pandemic and shifting timelines—LACMA is boldly rewriting the rules of what a permanent collection can be. Its novel thematic layout groups art not by era or style but into sweeping geographies, signaling a globally focused and more fluid approach to storytelling.
Christa Terry,Elisa Carollo